T0 Gaming Guild Saves the World.

Chapter 426, Section 425: We'll take care of you.

With the return of the clone, the candlelight finally revealed the mystery of this strange world to Chen Shaoyu.

Angke, in the local dialect, means the morning glow.

The candlelight illuminated a long and arduous journey, leading to the discovery of the first world of intelligent beings.

However, unlike the structure Chen Shaoyu was familiar with, this place, which was far more vast than Blue Star, Three Domes, and the fantasy world of Fisa, had an unusually sparse population.

With the candle in hand, Chen Shaoyu moved on to other stalls. He bought a roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) and asked the stall owner to cut it in half and give it to her.

"how many?"

"There are only a few dozen people."

He couldn't bite into the roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) that was about to enter his mouth. He slowly raised his head and looked at the candlelight across from him, who was squinting and enjoying the food.

"Tens?"

“To be precise, it’s 79,” Candlelight affirmed. “The race that exists in the Onk world is the Mushroom People, who have established a vast fungal civilization.”

"The era dominated by individual consciousness changed midway. In order to cope with the 'man-made disasters' created during the development process and to prevent civilization from inevitably heading towards destruction, they had no choice but to revert to their ancestors, embrace the most primitive survival mode, and transform individual consciousness into a half-individual, half-swarm."

"79 'ancestor' level life forms have appeared on Planet Onk."

Chen Shaoyu was stunned, muttering, "The ancestor of mushrooms?"

Candlelight approvingly said, "That's how I named them, and they love it."

"The 79 mushroom ancestors of Onk contained the seeds of the entire civilization; history and knowledge were all recorded by them using themselves as containers."

"No matter which ancestor is destroyed for any reason, the other ancestors can recover most of the information by devouring, thus ensuring the continuation of civilization."

The progenitor represents civilization itself.

The strange life forms and novel stories of civilization made Chen Shaoyu look at the stall not far away—mixed mushroom fried rice.

One serving per person, eat as you walk.

Candlelight said, "Because of a shift in civilization, Onk's mushroom progenitor transformed the entire world into a mushroom sea through a new form."

"In terms of the ability to transform the world and the capacity to execute those transformations, they far surpass you."

Chen Shaoyu thought to himself, "You've traveled to so many places, yet you've only discovered a handful of vibrant worlds. How desolate."

"Were the progenitors also involved in the Tower World?" he asked.

“Only one Ancestor has accessed the Tower World,” Candlelight said. “The other Ancestors are heavy LAN players; they prefer to play quietly.”

“Even though I promised them a reward, they were unmoved.”

"How can one person play Tower World?" He was stunned.

Candlelight's mouth was bulging as he mumbled, "I gave each ancestor seven game slots. He is a city-state, a country, and playing games with you is practically cheating."

"With a semi-individual, semi-swarm consciousness, the progenitor can awaken different individual consciousnesses to take over the game characters."

"Their ability to deduce situations can be achieved through collaborative calculations via a swarm network, which is far more efficient than your brains."

"If my clone hadn't restricted the Ancestor's access to the stream of consciousness, there would be very few people in the three worlds with whom I could have a proper relationship."

Chen Shaoyu's mouth was slightly open.

What kind of man-made disasters did this powerful mushroom civilization cause to regress the course of world history to its ancestral state?

"So, where are they in place now?"

"Ranked 67th in the Tower World Rankings, his name is 'Ancestor Toto'."

Chen Shaoyu quickly checked.

The current top 100 are all teams from the Three Kingdoms region.

The only exception is the progenitor Toto.

In their minds, the Three Domes Land had long dominated the rankings, but in the Three Domes Land itself, it was probably just...

"Where did the progenitor Toto come from, and why is he staying on the list?"

Unconcerned about the need to determine who is superior, the progenitor Toto simply enjoys the game and is the only neutral player in Tower World Showdown.

While paying for the snacks, Chen Shaoyu glanced at the chat group and noticed that they were copying and pasting a screenshot of an interview.

"Hmm, Nong Ya's interview on the boundary between the virtual and the real?"

Nong Ya's bombshell revelation caused a huge uproar in the community.

Since its launch, the game has become notoriously lonely, blurring the lines between reality and virtuality.

Within the game, you can only interact with a limited number of familiar guilds.

Outside of gaming, he boasts millions of fans, but his only commercial activity was a live stream promoting fruit from the hometown of the Tea God.

After the live stream ended, silence returned.

Countless business orders await them, ready to capitalize on the high volume of traffic and earn a living.

Holding the golden bowl, they pretended to be mute.

Send a message to the official account to politely decline.

Let alone players, even laymen have never seen someone sitting on a mountain of gold and silver who is unwilling to dig it up.

Now that things have come to this point, the real identities of everyone at the boundary between the virtual and the real are no longer a mystery, yet there hasn't even been a formal interview, making it really hard to understand their inner world.

Nong Ya's interview finally filled this gap.

Many long-standing questions from the outside world have been answered.

For example, the issue of internal team dynamics that the community has been joking about.

"Before it was just 'according to reliable sources,' but now it's confirmed. Potatoes and fries, bed and squid, they've been in a relationship for a long time."

"No! This leaves absolutely no room for imagination!"

"Waaaaah, my fries, my fries..."

Will cyber potatoes produce electronic solanine when they meet plain fries?

"Thank goodness, I love the Tea Master. As long as the Tea Master is single, I will believe in love!"

"Brother, please wake up. The Tea Goddess is my wife. Take back your nonsense."

"?"

"How is she your wife? She's clearly my wife!"

In the interview, the people at the boundary between virtual and reality also openly addressed the question of why they had been relatively silent.

"Compared to creating a persona, people see us playing games happily, which poses less risk of our image collapsing."

These words, coming from the jailer, are really hard for players to handle.

"Let me correct you. If you like the prison guard, then you'll never have to worry about your persona collapsing. He's just that abstract."

"Sigh, you're joking, Jailer. I really don't believe you can change an abstract skill, a talent you were born with."

"The person who spoke has a problem, but the words themselves are fine. Look at the top four guilds, they all say they're just playing the game, so they can't really cause any trouble outside of the game."

Khorne's Chosen, pure gaming fanatics, shouting and killing in the game, but offline, this group of burly men are all very polite. When a group of tall guys have a meal together, they spend ages debating a menu, each one considering the tastes of others.

The most famous instant food brand is a cyber saint, working voluntarily every day, generating electricity with love.

"I'll go to sleep a few more minutes later. I need to finish this seed, otherwise they won't be able to keep up with the pace."

This screenshot circulated widely in various chat groups, touching countless players.

Orange Sky and Funny Tree, both guilds are pure internet addicts.

After learning about the boundaries between virtual and real cohabitation, a group of people rented a villa offline.

Before renting, they said they were going to have a big party, vividly describing the scene in the chat group.

After meeting in person, they were all shy and reserved. Upon arriving at the villa, they went to bed on time that night – a testament to their brilliance.

After waking up and having a quick breakfast, I play video games all day long.

There are countless games in the Steam library with tens of thousands of playtimes.

Scarlet Music Box jokingly calls herself the babysitter of her group members, dragging internet-addicted teenagers along to collect game information and regulate their gaming time and posture—one person's posture in front of the computer is clearly that of a shrimp.

In his dream, Huang Liang felt like a university counselor, reminding these hardcore internet addicts glued to their computers about their diet and sleep schedules, and regularly taking them out for training to improve their physical fitness.

This group of people is among the top in the country, which makes people feel completely at ease both inside and outside the game.

The only way you can meet them is to become a delivery driver and deliver food to their door while they are eating.

At other times, unless you transform into a robber and break into the villa with a gun pointed at your head, they won't realize that the gunshots are actually coming from reality, not from the other side's ECO round forced buy.

A clean and transparent social atmosphere.

They are all cyber succubi in chat groups, born with sacred bodies that can only be nurtured by feeding them thousands of erotic pictures.

Once offline, they were all docile, humble, and polite, making one wonder if they had a split personality.

Given its extreme purity, the internal digestion of the boundary between reality and illusion is hardly surprising to community players.

Given their social circles, it would be surprising if they didn't handle it internally.

The interview post inexplicably went off-topic, eventually focusing on the extent of internet addiction among China's top guilds, describing it as overly pure.

And blessings to the young couple on the boundary between reality and virtuality.

It became strangely warm.

The community atmosphere, usually chaotic and filled with abstract debates, suddenly regressed several decades in this post, returning to the normal timeline where sharing happy events would normally receive blessings from netizens.

Jiang Heyi was also reading this post.

French Fries wrapped her arms around his neck, rested her head on his shoulder, and smiled, her gaze following the mouse wheel.

"Now everyone knows."

"Isn't that good? It's a way of asserting sovereignty," said French Fries. "I pointed at Du Jingwen in bed and scolded her, and she didn't dare to bother Cuttlefish anymore."

"Declaring sovereignty is still useful, isn't it?"

My parents are always so lovey-dovey, it's making me dizzy, but I've kept their words in mind.

"Don't hesitate, just show it if you like him. Do you know how many people will be envious of him?"

Jiang Heyi should belong to her.

Thinking about it, she tightened her grip on Jiang Heyi's hand.

In the evening, the noisy young couple returned.

The two were recognized during their visit to the zoo, and fans rushed to take photos with them.

Upon arriving at the aquarium, the same scenario played out once again.

"Ha, I was planning to spend some time alone with the two of us and even go out for a nice meal, but that's all ruined now."

"Is it really that exaggerated?" the prison guard wondered. "Is everyone being treated like a superstar?"

"You can give it a try," the bed grumbled. "But if it happens to you, players will probably just try all sorts of crazy things on you and see how you react."

"Why is it discrimination? Why can't I take a photo with you?" the prison guard asked, puzzled.

Everyone sighed helplessly.

Why doesn't the jailer understand his place in the hearts of community players?

Spending too much time in the virtual world can sometimes make you miss the warmth and vibrancy of real life.

The long-awaited "sense of reality" was replenished from real life, and everyone felt relaxed and at ease as the boundaries between the virtual and the real were blurred.

Upon re-entering the game, I immediately found Elaevi.

The shameful dragon finally woke up and began crafting another set of Origin Element equipment.

【Origin Element - Fire】

This is also what the fries require.

Among the stars, there are significantly more monsters that excel at fire than other elements, making it a good time to craft a countermeasure set as early as possible.

Ke Xia appeared before Jiang Heyi after a long absence.

For some reason, she suddenly stopped being so clingy. Although her eyes still looked tender and affectionate when she looked at Jiang Heyi, she started to initiate contact less often.

French fries were curious, but didn't ask.

"We can offer less and less help to the guild these days. Perhaps I should leave for a while and go out on my own to help you find some serendipitous encounters?"

King Slime shared the same idea.

If the insect fog's abilities weren't somewhat lacking, it would probably want to leave temporarily as well.

The unexpected situation left everyone somewhat bewildered.

Jiang Heyi quickly reviewed the guild records and found the crux of the problem.

Perhaps because we beat up the players from the kimchi group too badly last time, and the effect of establishing our authority was too great, casual players no longer visit the guild much.

Recently, in order to establish strongholds and profit in the Tower World, leading guilds from various countries have been increasing their guild investments in a flurry of activity.

The surge in the number of strongholds that can be invaded for profit has provided new targets for players looking to take advantage of the chaos.

Instead of testing the increasingly solid defensive strongholds that test the boundaries between reality and illusion, it's better to pick on the weaker targets.

In the past week or so of game time, the entire guild has only had 27 members participating in intrusions.

This is nothing compared to before.

The guild NPCs, who had been on edge all along, suddenly felt a sense of dejection, as if they had no place to use their skills.

Mint and Renee, however, maintained their great enthusiasm, producing large quantities of potions and trading with wandering merchants for basic materials.

But they were just providing military support; they really had nothing to do.

"Why do you all have to do something? You're doing just fine in the guild," Jiang Heyi blurted out. "We'll support you."

Ksha and the Slime King exchanged a glance.

"I know what you're thinking... but I should do something for you."

"We didn't join the guild with the intention of just loafing around and waiting to die."

Jiang Heyi's forehead was sweating.

He wasn't sure if there were any risks involved in letting Ksha leave to seek "adventures".

If something unexpected happens during gameplay, wouldn't the well-run guild be missing a member?
French Fries suddenly interjected: "Please wait a little longer, everyone. Soon, we'll need you to do something big."

Kesha tilted his head: "Oh? Something important?"

"As you all know, we have been searching for strategies to conquer unusual dungeons around the world for a long time, and many of the guild's valuable resources have come from this. This time, we have found a particularly large stronghold."

"We cannot complete the strategy on our own, so we need your help."

Upon hearing this, Kesha and the others' eyes lit up.

"Similar to the Temple of the Clarity?"

“It’s even harder than that.” Seeing that he had attracted the attention of all the NPCs present, Jiang Heyi breathed a sigh of relief. “Everyone, please don’t go out recklessly recently. Stay in the guild and wait for our good news.”

Upon hearing this, Kesha's tail finally wrapped around Jiang Heyi's waist and abdomen, its tip, resembling a cat toy, trembling incessantly.

Now that things have come to this, the guild upgrade in the Tower World must be done as soon as possible.

　There should be another chapter tonight.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)