Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 854: Chapter 812 – I Knew It!_2

After that, the brother grew up quickly, but the sister never appeared again.

A dense fog slowly covered everything on the screen.

Just when Warehouse Bird thought that the “opening cutscene” concluded, a scalding red horse-cutting saber suddenly cleaved through the fog!

——Metal sparks flew everywhere!

The lens suddenly shifted, onto a young girl’s face which still held a hint of immaturity. Her face took up the centre of the screen, however she was pale while her shoulders were covered in blood, reflecting a face filled with horror and helplessness.

The lens panned back again, the dense fog slowly retreated, and Warehouse Bird finally saw clearly. The glowing hot horse-cutting saber, was held in the hands of a viciously large brute.

The brute donned a full body armour, his face covered by a terrifying metal ghost mask. Even the robust horse he rode was armoured.

He stood with his blade drawn, seeming godly and demonic at the same time!

The next moment, this giant blade dripping with molten iron, squarely came slashing down!

“F*ck!” Warehouse Bird was startled, forcefully reclined his body only to open his eyes and awaken from the dreamscape.

Before he could analyse what had just happened, he was dumbfounded on the spot:

“Where the heck am I??”

Being a top-level player part of the game’s hardcore, the first important goal after game launch was of course to race for the first completion of the game.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on ƝοѵǤᴑ.сօ

For this, he put in a lot of effort. During the closed beta, he refrained from messing around too much, basically covered the whole Chang’an city’s market, even bought a detailed map of Chang’an city in the Tang dynasty, and firmly committed the map to memory.

Just to get any possible head start after entering the game. And players who adopt the same method aren’t few, they all were players who dreamt of claiming the first completion of the game.

But, but!

“Why am I in the wilds when the game just started?!”

“Does this game even have an open world?”

——During the closed beta, although the city gates could be exited, no matter how much you walked it’s an endless repeat of the same scenery. Taking a step back would return you to the front of the city gates, just like stepping towards the edge of the map in previous games.

So everyone thought that Chang’an only occurred within the city and there was no concept of “outside the city” in the game.

But now, Yunmeng Development Group instantly made them eat their words just when they logged in…

Warehouse Bird looked around and found that he seemed to be on the move following a merchant team. And it was already evening, the NPCs were setting up camp and sorting out their things, and some people already constructed simple cooking stations, starting to cook their meals.

As for himself, he was wearing a common ancient attire, with a sword hung around his waist. He sat on a tree stump, holding a letter in his left hand and a bag of dry food in his right, seemingly about to deal with it as a meal.

But before he could eat, a woman who also had a sword on her waist approached, handed Warehouse Bird a pear, and was about to speak when the world suddenly froze.

A line of text appeared in front of Warehouse Bird: [Please enter your surname.]

Below it was an input box, and behind the textbox were icons of a dice and book.

The book represented the “Hundred Common Chinese Surnames”, clicking on it would present to the players reference surnames.

The dice represented [random], clicking on the dice would randomly roll a surname for the player from the “Hundred Common Chinese Surnames”.

These two settings weren’t aimed at Daxia players – Daxia players could simply use another surname if they didn’t want to use their real surname, it wasn’t a big deal.

These two settings were mainly to facilitate overseas players, especially players from outside of the Daxia culture-zone. They knew virtually nothing about Huaxia (Chinese) surnames.

Using their real surnames or making one up for them will come out very oddly.

Imagine, an ancient NPC addressing the player as: “Young Master Smith”, “Brother Johnson”, “Young Lord Williams”, “Mr. Miller”…

It’s too weird!

So the Yunmeng Development Group agreed unanimously to add these two helper features.

Of course, if western players insisted on using their real names, Yunmeng will also not stop them…

Without much thought, Warehouse Bird quickly wrote his own real surname: Ning.

Time started moving again, and the girl said her line: “Brother Ning, don’t worry about your sister, it’s just a dream. Once we reach Chang’an, you’ll see her safe and sound.”

‘So… that girl being pursued, was she my sister?’ Warehouse Bird subconsciously looked at the letter in his hand.

But before he had time to read it, the girl across him started speaking again: “Brother Ning, don’t stomach the dry food, dinner will be ready soon. Come and eat with us?”

“Sure,” Without any hesitation, Warehouse Bird nodded in agreement.

This dry food looked upsettingly hard to eat.

Of course, this wasn’t important, the players could even not eat.

The important part was how this girl looked at him—flushed cheeks, feigned boldness with some shyness, it was easy to guess: this girl probably had feelings for him.

More accurately, this girl fancied the “protagonist”.

External appearances aside, this girl’s figure was outrageously desirable, even a form fitting dress couldn’t hide her substantial assets.

——While time was paused earlier on, even with a game clearance in sight and needing to maintain his image during the livestream, Warehouse Bird couldn’t help but sneakily glance at the girl’s proud chest.

It wasn’t that he was overly lecherous, it’s just that when certain things grow to a certain extent, and it exceeds the norm by a large margin, it’s hard to control one’s attention, not to let it divert towards the “exceedingly normal”.

It’s human nature.

Just as lightning always strikes the highest point, people’s attention is always drawn to unusual things.

This is a law of nature.

Watching the woman happily leave, Warehouse Bird finally took some time to read the letter in his hand.

It was only when he read it that he realized it was a reply letter from a distant relative. In that dream sequence, the one who adopted his sister to live in Chang’an was this distant relative.

However, in the letter, this distant relative regretfully said: they didn’t know where Shirley—the protagonist’s sister, was.

They repeatedly stated: they really didn’t mistreat the little girl but instead loved her as their own, but it seemed that too much pampering and indulgence had resulted in her disappearance.

The situation was a bit complicated. They hoped for him to come to Chang’an for a discussion and also hoped to find the little girl.

At the same time he finished reading the letter, the main task finally appeared before Warehouse Bird’s eyes—

[Main Missions: Head to Chang’an and find out the reason for the sister’s disappearance.]

The character panel is also activated at this time.

Warehouse Bird opened it immediately—

Name: Warehouse Bird

Identity: Ranger

Character Level: Lv.1 (0/100)

Martial Arts Mastered:

[Basic Kung Fu·Physical (Basic)]

[Basic Sword Technique·Techniques (Basic)]

Enhancement Points: 0

Overall Evaluation: Villager

——

“…” Warehouse Bird was speechless for a moment, “What the hell is the basic Basic Sword Technique…”

However, he quickly adjusted his mood.

Starting off bare-bones is normal, right?

Moreover, compared to the previous closed beta, the situation had improved significantly.

He had an identity, clothes, a money bag, weapons, missions, and even basic martial arts.

Lacking only combat and monster-slaying to gain experience, he could then level up, enhance his martial arts, and become a martial arts master!

Even at the start, he had a busty girl admiring his strong figure…

“This is how a protagonist should be treated!” Warehouse Bird couldn’t help but exclaim.

He finished reading the letter, saw his admirer waving his arm, inviting him to come over for a meal.

Warehouse Bird putting away the letter, walked over briskly.

He planned to develop his emotional relationship with her, and increase the favorability.

In one of the promotional videos released by Cloud Dream previously, it specifically talked about the Home System. Players can not only buy houses in Chang’an City but can also recruit NPCs to live with them.

For instance, recruit a few maids and servants.

So, if the favorability is high enough, wouldn’t redeeming a few courtesans or marrying a heroine be a possibility?

Anyway, it doesn’t hurt to try since the main quest doesn’t start until he reaches Chang’an and now he has nothing much going on anyway.

Warehouse Bird walked towards the stove, took the bowl and chopsticks from the little sister and gratefully thanked her. The girl immediately showed a pleased smile.

Just as Warehouse Bird was about to take advantage of the situation and say a few cheesy phrases to test the effect, he suddenly noticed that the soup in his bowl, which had been calm a moment ago, started to ripple.

The next moment, the sound of dense horse hooves suddenly rose from a very close location and quickly approached them!

Someone shouted from the edge of the crowd—

“Bandits! More than twenty! They’re riding horses! Quick, hide! Hide behind the cart!”

“Swish, swish, swish!”

Almost instantly, several arrows swooped towards the crowd, and three people instantly fell to the ground with arrows in them.

“Ah——” The common people of the merchant team immediately fell into panic.

The man who shouted did not dare to shout again, not knowing whether he was struck by an arrow or not.

The busty girl was also panicked and pulled Warehouse Bird towards the back side of the goods truck.

Watching this scene, Warehouse Bird showed no panic. Instead, he had a kind of “as it should be” illusion.

He couldn’t help but complain to the audience:

“F*ck! I knew it! The start isn’t right if no one’s getting killed, it’s simply unreasonable!”