Section 004: The Promising Future of Online Games

Li Zhan’s goal was swiftly accomplished. Through working side by side with Zhou Min in the fields and eagerly listening to her suggestions, by the time the thirty-odd cotton seeds had been planted, Zhou Min’s loyalty had risen to seventy-two, and her enthusiasm for her work had improved significantly. However, support for Li Zhan remained unchanged.

Clearly, there must be another way to increase support.

Li Zhan mused to himself. As for his own villagers, he hoped that each one would reach complete loyalty and support—a perfect score in both. In this sense, Li Zhan’s personality leaned toward perfectionism, or perhaps he was an idealist of the highest order.

In “Empire Ascendant,” whether planting cash crops or grains, the harvest could be reaped as soon as the seeds were sown, continuing until the entire plot was exhausted, at which point planting could begin anew. This design closely matched the strategy of fighting while farming.

At that moment, Zhou Min was carefully tending the small cotton field, loosening the soil and pinching off shoots. From time to time, she would pick the ripe cotton bolls and place them into the basket at her side. The other two villagers had also brought their fields to the harvest stage, and the baskets beside them quickly brimmed with a golden bounty.

Meanwhile, the tribal center continued to produce villagers. While Li Zhan and Zhou Min were working in the cotton fields, Zheng Jun and a villager skilled in construction built two thatched huts and a mill. Each hut could house five villagers, while the mill sped up the processing of crops, turning grain directly into food.

Looking at these new buildings, Li Zhan felt a surge of pride in his NPCs. Seeing Li Zhan with a moment of leisure, Zheng Jun came over and said,

“Chief, I’d like to build a boathouse by the river bend to the west, then use it to produce fishing boats for catching fish. The price ratio of meat to ordinary grain is five to one. That river bend is a natural granary for us and should be put to use as soon as possible.”

Zheng Jun’s thinking matched Li Zhan’s perfectly, and Li Zhan readily agreed. He also instructed Zheng Jun to assign two more villagers with construction skills to build a wooden fence enclosing an area five hundred meters around the tribal center, to protect the villagers from wild beasts at night.

Li Zhan didn’t notice that, as he gave these orders, a look of gratitude flickered in the eyes of the surrounding villagers.

After issuing his instructions, Li Zhan logged out.

He removed his gaming helmet and glanced out the window: it was already afternoon. Immersed in the game, he hadn’t noticed his hunger, but now, back in the real world, his stomach began to rumble.

As a seasoned bachelor, Li Zhan had a myriad of quick solutions for hunger and wasted no time. He grabbed some instant noodles and a sausage from the fridge, and, eating as he went, made his way back to the bedroom. Sitting at his desk, he opened the official website of “Empire Ascendant,” determined to quickly fill in the gaps in his knowledge about the game.

After polishing off his third helping, Li Zhan felt much more comfortable and, in the meantime, had gained a deeper understanding of “Empire Ascendant.”

The website introduced the game’s development process and collaborative partners. It took three years, gathering the collective wisdom of more than a dozen of the world’s top game developers. The world’s only super-server, “Firmament,” could support up to eight billion players online at once.

At this, Li Zhan, drawing on his two years’ experience as a business manager, immediately sensed that this was more than just a game—it was a potential money-making machine. Not only could the developers profit, but capable players could also strike it rich.

Sure enough, in the upcoming features section, there was a note that in-game currency would be exchangeable for real-world money at a rate of ten to one—that is, one gold in the game could be exchanged for ten World Credits. To maintain game balance, this exchange service would only open one month after the official launch.

Was this not the long-cherished dream of gamers—earning money while playing? To play your favorite game and make money at the same time was an almost heavenly prospect.

Just thinking about it sent a thrill of excitement through Li Zhan’s entire body.

Riding this wave of excitement, Li Zhan delved even deeper into the game. He clicked through dozens of web pages, browsed forums, and read player posts. After nearly two hours of research, he finally had a solid grasp of all aspects of the game.

What left the deepest impression on him was the issue of NPC villagers’ skills. Dozens of players had posted about recruiting countless villagers but never finding one with the “Planning” skill. Without a deputy with this skill, whenever a player logged out, the village would fall into chaos—logging camps built over farmland, boathouses erected over stagnant pools.

Hundreds of replies poured in, reaching the forum’s limit. Players complained bitterly that the Planning skill was too rare. Since no one could stay online twenty-four hours a day, solo players, in particular, dreaded what might await them when they logged back into their villages. In their frustration, they cursed the developers, accusing them of testing the limits of players’ patience.

Meanwhile, another post was burning hot—it was from a player who had actually recruited a villager with the Planning skill. The post was pinned by the website admin, perhaps as a distraction for the masses. The player had uploaded over a dozen screenshots, showing off the attribute page of the NPC with the Planning skill, the only remarkable trait on an otherwise ordinary character. The Planning skill was circled multiple times in red, and the player was clearly proud.

Below, countless players replied with envy, jealousy, and even more with offers to trade for the Planning-skilled NPC with real cash—leaving their game accounts in hopes of a reply. The price started at several thousand credits and eventually climbed to one hundred thousand. But the original poster never replied, perhaps to keep everyone in suspense.

Seeing all this, Li Zhan felt even more pleased with himself. To think that the skill so desperately sought after by countless players had appeared for him so easily, and not only that—the NPC in his village also possessed a second skill and superior attributes. One hundred thousand credits—that was equivalent to two years of his salary as a business manager, without spending a penny. And after just three or four hours in the game, he’d already made the equivalent of two years’ hard work—how could he not be delighted?

Although Li Zhan was surprised by the hundred-thousand-credits price tag, he was not at all tempted to sell. He understood how vital Zheng Jun was to him. As a solo player managing his own village, the consequences of lacking a good deputy would be dire—just as other players had said, it was unimaginable what state the village might be in after logging back in.

After closing the forum, Li Zhan opened the game’s ranking page. He searched patiently for quite a while, but could not find a trace of his “Yanhuang Tribe.” Finally, he used the search function, and the result stunned him: his tribe ranked 55,423,651st in the China region (without the search function, it would have taken forever to find it) and 115,769,524th in the world. He also noticed that the top thirty tribes in the world rankings were almost all of foreign civilizations. The top-ranked tribe in China, “Glorious Tang,” jointly managed by five players (the maximum allowed during the Dark Age), was only ranked twenty-seventh globally.