Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 570: Chapter 103: Third-Generation Virus

On the fourth day, players who were the first to fall in the Hell Task began to come back online.

Although ”Cyber Realm” is an ultra-realistic game, it is still a game, and the system offers two options for coming online.

The first option is to come back online at a fixed respawn point, usually a stronghold of the player’s faction, set by the player themselves.

The second option is to come back online at the location of death, likely for players needing to retrieve equipment or restart their tasks.

Without a doubt, no one would abandon this game’s initial Tier 2 top task just because of a single death.

However, when these veteran players logged in again, they were almost universally dumbfounded.

”What the hell! The map has changed!”

”It doesn’t make sense; it’s only been three days. Is the planning team working themselves to death? How much hair do they have left?”

”The island, the island is gone!”

”Not gone, just multiplied. The forums were actually right, damn! It’s too exaggerated!”

At that moment, what appeared before the players was a cluster of mini islands, the smallest of which was only the size of a basketball court, maybe with a skyscraper or a carousel, while larger ones were small forests with abnormally large trees that seemed to have matured overnight. Somewhere in the forest, the faint roars of Radiation Beasts could be heard.

Some careful players counted them; there were a total of fifty islands, mostly split from Atomic City. They were not far apart, at most about a hundred meters, at least a dozen meters. Forget players, even ordinary people could swim across with one dive, and for some agile Transformers, they could simply leap across.

However, when some players attempted to do just that, some ’newcomers’ looked at them with astonished eyes.

”Looking to die?”

”Trying to fight over-level monsters?”

”Did you check the forums?”

”What do you mean?” a player from the first death wave couldn’t help but ask.

”It means you’ll find out if you try—”

This player shrugged, lifted his gun, and headed toward an ancient robot stronghold, perfectly illustrating the sentiment of ’better him than me.’

Old players weren’t reckless; they were just eager to retrieve their gear!

One player witnessed with their own eyes that the advanced prosthetic body they painstakingly acquired was hanging on the head of a robotic dog on the opposite side. How could they resist? They leaped across the sea, and in the next moment, a flash of purple light appeared, and they mysteriously vanished.

About three minutes later, the game forums were buzzing with a post from that player.

”Ahhhh! Why does going into the sea teleport you, and it’s not just teleportation! Why was I sent directly into a monster horde! My health was instantly emptied, ahhhhh! My transformation rate dropped!!!”

Players generally didn’t mind losing levels and experience, as they could be regained by fighting monsters anyway. However, frequent deaths had a chance of decreasing the ’transformation rate.’ If this rate declined, not only would previously implanted prosthetics become unusable, but this ’drop’ was permanent and couldn’t be recovered. This meant that at the same level, your potential ceiling would be lower than others, which was the real trap.

The forums were filled with schadenfreude and sarcastic comments. Most of the first round of dead players weren’t so reckless and started lurking on forums, researching quality posts, and quickly figuring out what was going on.

It turned out that after the first batch of players had died, the Hell Task had evolved from ’Biochemical Mode,’ ’Electronic Ghost,’ to the current island version, which was the third version.

No need to mention Biochemical Mode, a swarm of prosthetic zombies, reputed to be the version that wastes equipment the most.

The ’Electronic Ghost’ was the content of the second version. It was very eerie; players would suddenly die, their health would instantly empty, and they wouldn’t know how they died. Right before dying, they would hear faint footsteps, which led players to affectionately call it ’Ghost Mode.’

But players are players, and after multiple deaths and verification by the system prompts, they finally understood that this ’Electronic Ghost’ was a very particular ’lethal virus.’ This virus was related to your ’prosthetic body durability.’ Once durability was reduced to two-thirds of its loss, the virus would suddenly activate, an ’Electronic Ghost’ would invade, or rather, the prosthetic body would retaliate and kill the implanter.

This version saw even more deaths than the first, including many high-end players, because they had no clue about the ’death’ mechanism.

Now, this current version, which just ’went online’ yesterday, had the entire Atomic City split into numerous small islands, each equivalent to a small map. Players must complete the ’main task’ of each small map, whether it’s solving mysteries or exploration, to move on to the next island. Essentially, it’s like a large map divided into 50 miniature structures.

If you go directly to the next island, you’ll be teleported right into a monster horde and beaten to death.

During this process, the difficulty of the monsters will increase exponentially. Even high-end players will find it hard to handle alone.

However, as long as you complete several side quests, you will acquire powerful NPC allies, such as mercenaries from Mas Sharpness.

So far, the player with the highest level of completion has broken through 41 small maps, and this player is neither the famous Brother Umbrella nor the leader of the butter world, Sister Ji, but a little-known female player.

Her name is Dida.

At this moment, Dida is breaking through the 42nd map at breakneck speed, swinging her hand as countless energy fungus dance, quickly clearing out the small enemies. Although these fungi don’t do much damage, they are numerous, just like releasing a swarm of fireflies, and the skill is stunningly beautiful.

As for the attacks from the Ancient Robots, she doesn’t dodge or evade them; for pure Energy Life, physical attacks are ineffective, which is why she is breaking through so quickly.

Soon, Professor Xie’s holographic projection appears, beginning to chitchat about the evolution history of the virus named ’Atomic Heart’.

”The virus is evolving, I can feel it; the virus sourced from the old era is sprouting in the new era. In order to grasp its power and control its disaster, we must...”

”Alright, your storytelling skill isn’t as good as you imagine, Mr. G,” Dida interrupts unceremoniously.

The ’Dr. Xie’ in the picture pauses, saying, ”Miss, you must be mistaken.”

Dida, this mushroom girl, rolls her eyes adorably, saying, ”If you say that again, I’m going to settle up with you for ditching me in the Digital Space.”

’Dr. Xie’ sighs, rubs his brow, his face seems to have turned young by decades, vaguely showing the shadow of Mr. G.

”I really can’t write stories, if I wrote novels, they’d certainly flop.”

”It’s you being too lazy, too lazy to bother even with a bit of disguise; the Mutated Radiation Beasts on these small islands and some electronic traps are just too much like a certain person’s style and handiwork.”

For some reason, though clearly a mysterious NPC with an indescribable origin, meeting again makes Dida feel exceptionally friendly, like seeing an old friend.

Gao Gong originally prepared all the grievances and hatched plans related to Dr. Xie, Mas Sharpness, and Du Gao Technology, wasting his efforts as the outline veered off course. However, Person G’s thick skin is not for nothing, as he directly handed over his draft to the other party.

”Since you’ve discovered it, there’s no way around it now, I’ll give you the pen, you write.”

Dida glances it over, twitching her mouth several times, where it’s written clearly—

Using participants’ bodies to catalyze the evolution of the ’Metal Heart,’ and according to the draft, the virus requires at least five generations to officially take shape, with each generation demanding the death of thousands; the stronger the virus, the more ’tools’ are needed.

For example, the currently developed third-generation ’Metal Flesh Virus,’ this virus’s trait is to decompose the ’essence’ from metallic materials, integrating into the surrounding environment.

In layman’s terms, once a small map can’t be broken through quickly, the Prosthetic Equipment—even your Transformer body—will permanently lose attributes.

Players are totally unlucky!

As a player of a benevolent order type, Dida couldn’t stand it, using players as guinea pigs, deceiving them, messing up their equipment, and the key point is, this kind of task simply can’t be completed, it’s too disgusting! This NPC is anti-human!

She raised her head seriously, saying, ”Need to add money!!”

...

Gao Gong successfully negotiated this transaction with the lady asking for more money, then shifted to ’Purple String Space,’ where countless silk threads interweave, forming an illusory world made up of isles that are floating in the purple energy ocean, rising and sinking.

And in reality, without his nearly ’unrestricted’ Destructive Energy catalyzing, the ’Atomic Heart’ would not mature so quickly, nor would the virus mutate so fast without the successive player guinea pigs.

”Ah, learn from mistakes, being a guinea pig is better than being an Iron Hide can, pay more attention in the future and know that not every task can be taken.”

That’s also why Gao Gong didn’t intentionally rally players into factions.

Firstly, this game wasn’t won by numbers, secondly—

Getting too familiar makes it hard to strike!

Within the Purple String Space, Gao Gong observes the world from a special angle, where the purple sea bubbles gurgle with a peculiar metallic shimmer, refusing to dissolve even while soaked in energy.

As Gao Gong attentively observes, Miao Miaomiao’s anxious voice suddenly echoes in his ear.

”It’s bad, our surveillance satellites have detected traces of the Mechanical Man.”