Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Xu Chun was on a high-speed train to Xiajing City.

Watching the ten players armed with cold weapons in the live stream, he couldn’t help but cover his face—It was just too painful to watch.

He couldn’t help but send a comment: “I bet that with their cold weapon skills, they will definitely be turned into sieves on the way from the outer circle to the middle circle!”

Qixia is a small place without an airport, and Xu Chun didn’t want to bother transferring, so he simply had his dad drive him to the high-speed train station for the trip to Xiajing City.

Anyway, he has already confirmed that he has successfully joined Cloud Dream, and even his employee number was sent to him overnight, so there’s no need to rush.

Thus, he was sitting on the high-speed train, leisurely watching the live stream and giving some advice.

Although Yi was eliminated, he couldn’t help but follow the heat of the competition.

At this time, he was also watching the live stream and expressing a similar opinion: “Acquiring points in the outer circle is too slow, and it seriously slows down the team’s equipment upgrade time. The subsequent progress will be very dangerous! Based on my experience, this team is likely to be eliminated.”

Although he had a serious expression, the comments were all brushing “[Experience].”

He couldn’t help twitching the corner of his mouth and pretended not to see it.

Super Tomato’s team, thanks to their incredible luck, found a pickup truck that could transport the whole team at the beginning, and they were very determined in executing their tactics. They now had a huge advantage.

They had robbed two gun shops in a row, and everyone was carrying three rifles with two pistols on their waists, and more than a dozen spare magazines full of bullets.

Now the team of ten is split into two squads. They were 10 meters apart, holding guns, politely asking the store owners to temporarily leave, and each occupying a storefront.

In this way, the two squads formed a pincer movement and could protect each other from being surrounded and trapped.

In order to ensure that they wouldn’t be ambushed, people took turns keeping watch on the roof.

People below were not resting either, and they were urgently using the stolen medical alcohol and high-proof liquor to make Molotov cocktails, to be stored in the shop for later use.

Seeing all this, Super Tomato’s excitement surged: “We have plenty of supplies and hold a geographical advantage. We are at a great advantage! Unless something unexpected happens…”

He was about to say, “Unless something unexpected happens, we will definitely qualify!”

But just one second before the words left his mouth, he suddenly thought of Yi’s previous lesson and swallowed the words back down.

The teammates looked at Super Tomato, who had stopped halfway through speaking, but he just smiled and closed his mouth.

At the very least, when it came to the gaming circle, one had to believe in the metaphysics!

Just then, the time reached[lo:oo].

The ground began to shake again— the circle was shrinking!

However, Super Tomato felt that something was not right: “The outer circle is collapsing, and we are in the core area. Why is the vibration so strong?!”

“Is it because yesterday I was watching through a screen that I couldn’t feel it as intensely as I do now?”

But as soon as the words were spoken, Super Tomato saw that at the very center of the Metropolis Central Plaza…

Suddenly—a crack appeared!

And it was very bizarre that the crack rapidly extended towards the north from the center of the square, while the other directions remained intact!

From the bird’s eye view of the live stream, it could be seen more clearly: this crack went from the central point of the plaza, cutting swiftly through the entire map and even reaching the edge of the outer circle!

It split the entire map!

Then, with this line as the starting point, the ground of the Metropolis began to collapse and fall inch by inch!

From a bird’s-eye view, the entire Metropolis looked like a clock face, with the crack extending from the center to the edge of the “12 0’clock” position, and then collapsing clockwise!

If the rule of shrinking one-quarter each time still holds, then the area between 12 0’clock and 3 0’clock on the clock face would be completely collapsed!

This collapse in the inner circle seemed very slow, but in the middle and outer circles, the speed of the collapse was astonishing!

Many players still fighting in the middle circle could only run helter-skelter, with their heads down, being chased by the collapsing earth and tens of meters high smoke and dust.

All players within the range began to run desperately, and to run faster, some even activated [Assassin’s Bloodline] to enhance their physical abilities.

After all, whoever was slow would fall and be eliminated!

As they ran, these people kept cursing Lincoln for his inhumanity!

“Just yesterday, the collapse started from the outer circle and circled inwards, and all the players today also made their tactics based on this mechanism. But now you guys change the mechanism without warning?! This is something a normal person can do?!”

Even while wildly running, some still tried to take advantage of the situation, firing their guns amidst the intense tremors.

However, the ones getting shot didn’t curse the shooter, but instead cursed Lincoln even harder: If it weren’t for you guys suddenly changing the mechanism, how would we end up in this miserable situation?!

On the edge of the core area, Super Tomato was also speechless.

I didn’t jinx us by saying we would definitely advance! So why would such a pitfall still happen?

Can’t I even think about it?!

But there’s no point in overthinking it now, as he frantically gathered his belongings with his teammates — after all, both of their bases were at 2 0’clock from the Central Square, so if they didn’t move, they could only wait to be killed by the shrinking circle.

Besides, relocating meant giving up their previous territorial advantage, and they had to look for a new position all over again.

And, based on the current situation of the shrinking circle, Super Tomato, with his strong spatial imagination, quickly understood the changed mechanism and inferred the final safe zone—

The area between 9 0’clock and 12 0’clock on the dial.

People who could realize this must be more than just him, so if they wanted to grab a “feng Shui treasure land,” they might still have to go through an intense firefight in order to compete with other teams for the spot.

During this process, Super Tomato was speechless to see that the NPCs in the Metropolis remained completely unaffected by the intense earthquake, not only firmly standing on the ground without any wobbling, but also doing their dailv routines like a normal dav!

Even as they fell into the abyss, the shopkeeper and customers remained calm and composed…

The scene was extremely magical.

It wasn’t just the players in the competition venue who were cursing.

All three commenting teams were also dumbfounded.

From the beginning of the match until now, their commentary and analysis of the players’ tactical choices were based on yesterday’s game mechanism.

So now this ridiculous shrinking circle mechanism appeared, making all their previous commentary completely useless.

The tactics they had praised so highly before could no longer hold up!

Ren Jian and Zara were smiling, but cursing inside: They had never encountered such a difficult match to commentate! Even Cloud Dream was outrageous, deceiving both players and commentators!

If it weren’t for Cloud Dream’s generous pay, they would’ve protested by now!

Of course, the live-streaming audience was also stunned by this turn of events.

As they mocked the commentators, they also cursed Cloud Dream, especially Lincoln:

“Can’t you just act like a normal person? How can you change this basic game mechanism at will?”

“What if it changes again tomorrow? Can’t you just act like a normal person?”

“I don’t mind the mechanism changing, I just want to ask: Do you guys really have so much manpower? With this energy, why not develop a new game?”

“@Flying Fox, look at their game development efficiency! Where is your ‘The

Last Moment’?!”

“@NetDragon, where is your ‘Blaze 3’ DLC?”