Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 120 Third Test
There are 1,000 game slots available for testing.

Even including the dozens of prizes from the game's official competitions, the total is only a little over a thousand.

This number is a drop in the ocean compared to the tens of millions of pre-registrations—the game "Ten Continents Chronicles" has become a phenomenon, and neither criticism nor praise can affect its popularity.

In the ten minutes before the server opened, the last non-binding third beta test activation code with a transaction record even fetched a sky-high price of over two million!

This excited many veteran players, who excitedly declared themselves to be "worth two million".

The new expansion pack update changed the opening story animation to a scene where everyone participates in a limited-time battlefield to protect Guangcheng Sect. In addition to the exciting actions of the NPCs, the Master's "Qi Jiguang Mandarin Duck Formation Youth Version" also appeared in the "camera" many times. The scene where Wang Ergou led the team to buy time with their lives and kill the BOSS Ghost General was placed in the center and given a progress bar of more than ten seconds!
It's worth mentioning that the scene of the Jade Emperor wearing only his underwear and carrying a bunch of explosives was also recorded. Whether it was the official's twisted sense of humor or not, they even specially recorded Wang Ergou's dramatic voiceover, which was comparable to an original soundtrack: "My mission! Completed!"

However, the expansion ended with a palace complex above auspicious clouds, which aroused a lot of anticipation among players.

New players followed the guides on the forum, customized their characters, adjusted their body stats, and most of them took the advice and chose relatively normal names before entering the game.

Then, without exception, all the newbie players were stunned by the sight before them.

The way new players enter the game has been changed again. The random spawn location is no longer on the ground near Taiyin Mountain, but around Taiyin Divine Palace. Even the farthest one is only a few hundred meters away from the sect's main hall, Taiyin Hall, which is much more convenient.

For the newbies, the first thing they saw was a vast expanse of auspicious clouds that only existed in their imaginations. One newbie player tentatively lay down and took a big bite of an auspicious cloud, and even chewed it—but he chewed nothing at all. Instead, he was "slapped" by the auspicious cloud, which seemed to be "angry," and fell face-first into the mud.

However, what's even more breathtaking are the exquisite and majestic palace buildings, each one more beautiful than the last, as if transporting you to a fantasy world—no! This is time travel!

This is the first thought that arises in the minds of many new players as they feel the gentle breeze and refreshing air.

It wasn't just the newbies who were shocked; even veteran players who excitedly logged into the game and were teleported to the "faction headquarters" were constantly exclaiming "Holy crap!"

After the competition results were announced on the game forums, the buzz remained high, with veteran players speculating about which design the official *Ten Continents Chronicles* game developers would ultimately copy, but little did they expect…

It copied everything!
The design of the Cloud Palace was copied from Zhao Qing, the second-place winner in the illustration category; the design of the main hall was copied from the first-place winner in the AI ​​category; the architectural style was copied from the first-place winner in the illustration category; and the architectural layout was copied from the creation of a 3D master. The connecting corridors, waterside pavilions, and painted boats all bear the shadows of different entries. The entire "Taiyin Divine Palace" can truly be described as a "gathering of talents" and a "piece of shredded remains." The only difference is that the scale of the entire palace complex is indeed extremely large, estimated to cover at least hundreds of thousands of square meters, or even more!
However, many players still couldn't help but complain: "Where's your shame!? Have some shame at all! You're plagiarizing so enthusiastically!?"

Some players were indifferent: "To be honest, it's quite a good copy! Anyway, those award winners can just resell the unlinked activation codes and live off the rest!"

A lemon-loving player gritted his teeth: "I hate myself for not studying art back then!"

"You're overthinking it. I studied art, and I didn't even make the shortlist. This industry is already incredibly competitive; even AI can draw better than me!"

……

As more and more players logged into the game, the eye-catching IDs above their heads and the simple but functional system panel finally gave everyone some clues that "this is a game," and they began to adjust their mindset and treat it as a real game.

However, many beginner guides on game forums are no longer applicable, because the task of leveling up for beginners is no longer chopping down trees, but has become an exploration task.

In the taskbar of the new players' system interface, the only task is flashing, aggressively asserting its presence: 【Explore the Ten Thousand Mountains】: 【Choose a suitable tool, use the sect's teleportation array to teleport to the Ten Thousand Mountains and explore within it, completing the sect map. (Repeatable) (Rewards: ?Exp, ?Copper Coins) (Task Reward Notes: The amount of experience points and copper coins varies depending on the completion level of the task.)】

Compared to the newbies' exploration missions, Wang Ergou and his group were much busier.

Today is the eve of the sect ceremony, and various sects and forces have arrived one after another. In order not to let the many silly new players shock the values ​​of these natives, Fang Xianyu specially arranged for the staff to house the various sects and forces in a small building complex that is two or three kilometers away from the Taiyin Divine Palace.

Leaving aside the fact that all the sects and forces that came just to join in the fun or had ulterior motives were shocked, even the sect leader of Guangcheng Sect, after being shocked, secretly pulled aside a few elders who were with him to inquire.

"Is this Taiyin Sect really that powerful? Then why did they come down here in the first place? To experience life here?!"

The speaker was Lian Jiezi, the sect leader of Guangcheng Sect, who was rarely at the sect.

As a famous socialite, Lian Jiezi often shamelessly attended various immortal banquets and Dao discussion meetings in order to ensure that Guangcheng Sect could survive in the cracks between many sects and forces. This time, it was Elder Hu who sent more than a dozen message talismans to urge her to come back for the Taiyin Sect's grand ceremony.

Elder Hu wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, which had formed from nervousness, and whispered in someone's ear, "This...this is the first time I've ever seen anything like this...but it did seem like a rather ordinary small sect before, with only a few hundred people in the entire sect. I never expected there to be so many people today..."

Although the major sects and forces were arranged to be far away from the newbie players, everyone was a cultivator with sharp ears and eyes, so how could they not hear the commotion not far away?
"It seems there are only a thousand or so people, not many at all, not even a fraction of our sect's! That 'rocket launcher' you mentioned before, which is said to be comparable to a single strike from a Nascent Soul cultivator, is that something their Taiyin Sect came up with?"

"Indeed."

"Their sect primarily cultivates artifacts?"

"This... I'm not quite sure about that..."

While the Guangcheng Sect members were whispering amongst themselves, on the other side, several members of the Taiyi Ziwei Sect were gathered together, their faces showing displeasure, to discuss something.

"This Taiyin Sect is much more troublesome than we imagined. Such a sect in the clouds, let alone our Ziwei Sect, even the Qiankun Sect doesn't have such unfathomable methods!"

"What can we do? We've come all this way, we can't just leave empty-handed, can we? Besides, if we go back empty-handed, do you think those elders will let us off the hook?"

"Perhaps this palace in the clouds is just one of their secret techniques? Didn't you see that the disciples who guided us were only at the Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment stages? What kind of tricks could they possibly have!"

"If it really is some kind of secret technique, getting our hands on it would be a great achievement!"

"Yes! Yes!"

The extra chapters I promised, and today's daily 10,000-word bet!

My mission is complete! Hahahaha!

(End of this chapter)