Game of the World Tree

▪️THE LAST PREPARATIONS

In Li Mu’s opinion, every frame of the 10-minute promotional trailer must’ve worth a lot of money, and he briefly wondered how much cash did the publisher squandered in order to produce it.

If he were to rate the trailer out of a hundred points, then Li Mu would definitely give it a ninety nine points. He merely deducted one point out of consideration lest the publisher became too entirely proud.

Regardless of the visuals, characters, sound effects, or even the cinematics, everything were all top-notch and definitely on par with the best in the industry and could even be considered as a hollywood-class movie.

No, most movies locally or foreign still hasn’t reach the level of cinematography shown in this PV…

The so-called “mind acceleration technology” also piqued his curiosity.

However, Li Mu still remained calm unlike the other netizens who got hyped up for the game after watching such groundbreaking promotional video.

On the contrary, he became more objective at the moment.

“The promotional video is indeed great, but… can the gameplay really be equally just as good as the trailer when it release?”

Nowadays it was already numerously proven that the VR industry are riddled with deceptive games with exaggerated advertising and false marketing schemes just so that these companies could fool the masses into playing their games.

Although the promotional video for “Elven Kingdom” was indeed quite a masterpiece, it did not necessarily mean that the gameplay would be really just as good as the trailer.

After closing the promotional video, Li Mu casually opened a search engine and soon found out that “Elven Kingdom” had already appeared on the trending tab and sparked extensive discussions on various social media platforms.

It is obvious that such a high-quality produced trailer, coupled with the mysterious new technology, would easily aroused the curiosity of most denizens of the internet.

In fact, Li Mu was also being affected by the hype and had the urge to join the heated discussions as well.

Despite anything else, even if he had never heard of this game company before, as a gaming veteran who already played a lot of AAA+ games in his life, Li Mu had a hunch that this game would definitely become an instant hit!

After all, it was obvious that a lot of money was spent on the promotional video alone, as if burning their entire budget to hell. Li Mu estimated that the cost of the game was probably a lot more higher than the rest of the virtual reality games already out on the market.

Despite the circumstances, he thought for a moment and felt that even if the gameplay didn’t live up to the hype, it probably wouldn’t be that bad either…

Moreover, he was very interested in the “mind acceleration technology.”

Not only that, but the trailer for “Elven Kingdom” has already sparked public discussions, and it is also the best video material to use in his next livestream as well.

Thinking of this, Li Mu nodded decidedly.

“This game is worth investing in.”

Immediately, he clicked on the registration link for the game.

The webpage changed again and the screen jumped to the official website of “Elven Kingdom”.

The official website was very rough, like it was created by an amateur web developer, which made Li Mu seriously doubt as to whether the company that made the motion graphics of the promotional video the same one that designed this site.

Although it was bad, the website still had everything you would expect to have, including a forum, message boards, and information section.

Li Mu scanned those briefly and clicked on the registration button on the homepage.

The screen flashed and jumped to the registration page.

“Welcome! Sign up for the chance of obtaining invitation for Elven Kingdom’s closed-beta test launch on June 01.”

“For your gaming experience, please fill in your identity information and related materials. Thank you for your cooperation…”

After looking at the registration requirements, Li Mu was not surprised.

Virtual reality games are deemed highly addictive, so the government imposed regulations which were enacted about a year ago requiring personal verification of anyone wanting to partake in such games.

He filled out his information smoothly and clicked on the register button.

“Registration successful! You are the 515,494th player to sign up for Elven Kingdom. Thank you for your participation!”

Seeing this number, Li Mu’s mouth opened abruptly.

“Wow! 500,000 registrations…that’s too incredible…”

“Can the game’s servers even operate under this kind of heavy load?”

Aftet all, Virtual reality game servers requires a much higher bandwidth and capacity needs compared to traditional ones!

After marveling for a moment, he then continued scrolling down the information section.

“The first batch of closed beta testers will have 300 available spots, and we will randomly select applicants within a week. Please keep an eye on your email and messages for the invitation.”

“Thank you for your understanding and support!”

Li Mu: …

“Three hundred? Are they kidding?!”

At that moment, he had the urge to smash his keyboard.

His expression changed, Li Mu emptied his coffee in one gulp to calm his nerves.

“Forget it, I’ll just borrow someone else’s account when the time comes.”

His anticipation diminished greatly as Li Mu shook his head before closing the webpage then went to find other games as potential prey for his livestream…

Time flew by quickly.

In the ancient Elfen Forest of in the mortal realm,

Nearly a month had passed and at this moment, the World Tree had undergone some few changes compared to before.

Although the vast majority of its branches still remained withered, some at the bottom and at the top have already shown some hints of budding greenery.

This was not intentionally done on the part of Evé, but rather a natural instinctual recovery process that the World Tree itself had initiated after its reawakening.

Although the process was slow and the World Tree was still in a critical condition, it will still gradually recover on its own just as long as it is given enough time and no problematic events occur during this period.

However, this process will be quite lengthy, and without any external assistance, it may take thousands of years to restore the World Tree to its peak.

Of course, Evé wouldn’t just wait for that to happen, as who knows if a powerful enemy will come knocking on her doorsteps during this period.

In recent days, she commanded the oak guardian to eliminate all threats within a ten-kilometer radius zone, as preparation for the upcoming beta-testing phase of her game.

In the future, this area will be the stronghold of the Elven civilization.

At the same time, she spent 03 points of divine power to establish an illusion barrier, concealing the maximum range she could control within the ten-kilometer radius zone, so that the outside world cannot see the changes happening to the World Tree.

This period is the most dangerous time for Evé since currently, her DP reserves were at its lowest and will remain at that low-level for quite some time due to game. She must ensure that she is not disturbed before her divine power value reaches around 100 DP.

She could formally rid of the quasi-death state when her divine power value reaches the three digit mark and can also finally create an avatar for herself, making it alot more convenient to use her abilities with a more familiar body structure.

Glancing at her own status screen, Eve sighed in her heart.

“My divine power value is still at 11 points… I hope ‘Elven Kingdom’ won’t be a flop.”

It was only because the Oak Guardian had once again annihilated another group of hunting Orc team in these few days that her DP value could be maintained at 10 points or above.

However, the continuous intrusion of these Orcs have also made Evé more vigilant.

There is a beastmen encampment near the Elven Forest, in which Evé has already confirmed. Although its strength is not strong compared to many other Orc tribes, this tribe is still too close to the Elven Forest for comfort and is a high-risk threat that needs to be solved sooner or later.

Not to mention, behind these Orcs is one of the mortal enemies of the World Tree, Uller the God of Winter and Hunting.

Unfortunately, Eve’s current range of influence can only extend up to ten kilometers and anything beyond that would severly limits her powers. Berserker is also alone and unable to deal with the enemy by himself…

“Perhaps, after the first batch of players arrive and when they finally reach a certain level, then I can just leave it to them as a quest or something…”

“Their initial levels would be low but I can expedite the process by giving them various task so that they can easily level up to ten which is the base ranks of Low-Iron…”

In fact, with Eve’s power, granting players a level 10 strength right at the start wouldn’t consume much of her powers. However, in order to prevent players from being reckless, she decided to implement a steep penalty of resetting their levels back to 01 whenever they die and had to resurrect.

The beginning period is the most crucial phase of her plans and Evé wanted to impart the importance of their lives from the start so that they wouldn’t just take their resurrection for granted.

“I bet the players will think those penalties are unreasonable but I must be strict at least at the start so that these guys can learn to cherish their lives here. It will also make things easier for me.”

The players’ activity range is much larger than Eve’s. Through testing, she determined that the furthest connection between the avatars she created and herself can reach up to one hundred kilometers, and anything beyond that will simply disconnect the linkage.

Of course, if it’s a believer, then they can travel even further because there is a dedicated link between believers and their patron deities.

But as virtual tourists from earth, Eve doesn’t expect these players to instantly convert into her faith, after all, it’s just a mere game to them.

And one hundred kilometers is also the maximum activity range for the initial players in Eve’s plan. To prevent players from getting lost, she has set up a system that will automatically alert her and forcibly teleport the player back whenever they go beyond this boundary.

But as Eve’s power grows, the players’ range of activity can also be expanded as well. And when she finally becomes an all-powerful god, she can even allow these players to travel freely throughout the entire world of Saigües!

Later, Eve once again immersed her consciousness within the Celestial Domain…

After testing the operation of the game system in her consciousness and feeling that there were no further problems at all, Evé focused her attention back to the core of her divinity.

There, a three hundred egg-shaped clusters of shimmering and misty light were hanging loosely, with each emitting the breath of life.

This was the first batch of avatars that she have created.

The bodies were already mature enough and the resurrection mechanism had already been set up. The next step was to choose the players and prepare to welcome the arrival of these lovely otherworlders!

Evé felt very satisfied and once again connected to earth’s internet to finally select potential players for her game.