Chapter 656: Chapter 623: The Moral Decline
One important reason for Wu Di’s casual attitude was that he had already obtained the most important prize in this competition—the [Honorary Player] title.
And since this title cannot be awarded more than once, he naturally didn’t care too much about the competition.
If he hadn’t been idle that morning, he wouldn’t have even considered participating in the competition.
Now, his entire focus was on Chang’an!
*
Ivan Ivanov’s mentality was completely different from Wu Di’s.
Although he had also obtained the [Honorary Player] title, he took this competition very seriously.
In the first round of competition, Ivan Ivanov went all out and achieved a terrifying score of 4428 points.
Even among the tens of thousands of matches in the first round, this was an outstanding achievement.
The main reasons for it significantly surpassing Lance’s and Wu Di’s performances were twofold:
First: No interference.
Players killing each other was not yet a common occurrence at this stage, and many people hadn’t thought of this cunning strategy.
Second: Ivan Ivanov himself had a high level of skill.
Not only was he good at the game and had first-class technology and rich experience.
He had also been playing for a long time, having already unlocked all the relevant hunting skill trees.
Neither Lance nor Wu Di considered “Hunter: Call of the Wilderness” as their “main game,” and their skill trees were not fully unlocked.
The Hunting Contest only limited the weapons used by players, but it did not completely eliminate the influence of skills.
This advantage was designed for loyal players in the event proposal itself.
Although it wasn’t as significant as unlocking all weapon advantages, it was still enough to create a huge gap between experts.
However, Ivan Ivanov’s favorite “traditional hunting” style was soon to come to an end.
Once Pandora’s Box was opened, the disaster was bound to spread to every corner.
The “modern hunting” of hunters hunting each other was spreading at a rapid pace!
In the third round, Ivan Ivanov still proceeded with his high-efficiency approach of quickly finding targets, shooting, chasing, and collecting trophies.
But after his first shot, he attracted other players.
When he found his second target—a moose, and accurately shot through its lung, he had just stood up to collect his trophy when a gunshot suddenly rang out from twenty meters away.
The next moment, Ivan Ivanov’s left knee was bleeding, and he stumbled to the ground.
He hesitated for a moment, and then he was shot again in the shoulder!
The second shot finally awakened him. Seeing the constantly bleeding wound, though he didn’t feel any pain, he knew that he had become the prey.
According to the rules of “Hunter: Call of the Wilderness”, if he keeps moving, the wound would continue to bleed for a long time.
The opponent would follow the bloodstains and footprints on the ground and catch up to him.
It was no different from chasing an animal.
Well, there was a difference, as he wouldn’t be defecating while running…
In any case, Ivan Ivanov clearly understood that he couldn’t run. He wouldn’t be able to escape, so he had to turn around and fight back, taking down his opponent!
So, suffering from both [Disabling] and [Bleeding] debuffs, Ivan staggered and began to retreat with an S-shaped route, occasionally firing back at his attacker.
Fortunately, the rifle in “Hunter” had a small power and strong recoil. As soon as he fired a shot, the crosshair could fly up into the air, which gave Ivan a chance to counterattack.
And finally, he succeeded!
Standing beside his paralyzed opponent, looking at his bleeding knee, Ivan was lost in thought.
Listening to the gunshots in the wilderness, near and far, he found that all of them were “bang, bang, bang” without stopping, clearly not hunting animals.
When hunting animals, usually there would only be one chance for a shot, and being able to shoot twice would already be considered great luck.
Who would continuously shoot like that?
It was obviously two players shooting at each other!
If Ivan were from Daxia, at least he would have sighed, “The world is going downhill, and people’s hearts are changing.”
Although he couldn’t say it, the idea was still shared. Hiding behind a tree and remaining still for a minute, making sure that the gunshot wound stopped bleeding and that moving wouldn’t leave any traces, Ivan resumed hunting.
But this time, he also included “other hunters” in the “prey” category.
…
…
By the afternoon, the [Hunting Contest] had irreversibly entered a new chapter.
The morals of the hunters and the relationships between them began to rapidly deteriorate.
There were troublemakers, sneak attackers, predator snatchers, alliances against others, and alliances that were betrayed… Various dramas took turns unfolding in a colorful array.
When it comes to scheming and stirring things up, how could animals outdo humans?
Although such complicated intrigues exhausted many “pure” hunters, they did indeed significantly enhance the entertainment value of the competition.
Of course, there were also negative effects —
“Bang!”
Shuihua held her breath and aimed at the lungs of a wild goat. As the goat’s steps faltered, she decisively pulled the trigger.
The wild goat fell with a loud sound.
But then it struggled to get up, ran a few steps, and unwillingly fell to the ground, quickly dying.
Shuihua stood up, intending to retrieve her trophy.
But just as she stood up, “Bang!”
Shuihua felt a blow to the back of her heart and involuntarily fell to the ground.
She propped herself up with both hands, trying to stand up and see what was going on, but her health bar was emptied by the [Bleeding] damage in a blink of an eye, causing her to fall to the ground and become [Paralyzed].
Faced with the choices of “quitting the game” or “waiting 15 minutes,” Shuihua gritted her teeth in anger.
Especially when she saw her opponent crawl out from behind a tree, ignored her, and ran over to steal her wild goat — this infuriated her even more!
“What kind of nonsense is this!”
“Not hunting properly, just focusing on attacking people!”
“I curse you all to be eliminated today!”
After a bout of helpless rage in her heart, Shuihua angrily exited the game.
But just quitting wasn’t enough. After leaving the game, she opened the game forum, intending to create a post and criticize this deviant behavior thoroughly!
However, she had just thought of a title when she suddenly remembered:
Wasn’t this deviant behavior actually started by her?
Lance wasn’t the only hunter who attempted to attack others in the first round — there were quite a few others too.
But since Lance was more famous and his battle process was broadcasted in the official live room, this greatly accelerated the idea of “hunters can attack each other” being deeply rooted in people’s minds.
And Shuihua was the one who inspired Lance.
She felt that she had to take some responsibility for the game environment turning into what it is now.
With this thought, Shuihua suddenly felt a bit guilty, silently closed the forum, and didn’t even play the game anymore, quietly going offline to do her homework…
It wasn’t just Shuihua, but the evening casual players who had time to go online and join in the fun also experienced what is called “the dangers of the human world.”
Afterward, they either played the new map honestly or switched to spectator mode to watch the “sinister” hunters play their intrigues against each other in the event live room.
Although being tricked by others was annoying, watching others trick each other made them quite happy!
*
Today was also the second day for the Cloud Dream Chang’an project team employees to be in Chang’an.
Lincoln successfully tasted six famous wines that he had heard about in ancient books and poetry.
However, only two of them have records in the Tang Dynasty. The others are from more recent times.
But after a cup of osmanthus wine, Lincoln was full of question marks: “This wine… why is it sweet?”
Little Princess blinked: “Tang Dynasty wine was originally sweet, right?”
“So…” Lincoln’s worldview was slightly shaken, “Li Bai’s hundred poems about wine, was he actually drinking fruit juice?”
Of course, it wasn’t fruit juice, but with such a low alcohol content and sweetness, it wasn’t that different from fruit juice!
On the way back, Lincoln was doubting his life.
Li Bai was his idol, after all!
To him, it was akin to his “idol collapsing.” The Little Princess tried to persuade him all the way and asked him to let it go…
…
At the same time, players in Chang’an had been running around in vain for a day without “capturing Lincoln.”
But they weren’t discouraged and still planned to continue searching the next day ambitiously.
They wouldn’t stop until they captured Lincoln!