Zhang Fan felt his head throbbing with blood.

Someone's there!

There are actually other players in this lousy online game!

"Who are you? Where are you?" Zhang Fan was about to speak when he realized that his words were invalid.

Chatting in the world channel requires consuming the game item "Command of the World".

A recharge and exchange interface for in-game currency immediately popped up in the game interface.

Damn it!

This game is awful! If you don't fail, who will? You have to pay to even say a word.

Zhang Fan scratched his head anxiously. Even if he wanted to recharge, he didn't have any money, and he couldn't enter his bank card account number and password.

We need to think of other ways to contact other players in the game.

Add me as a friend!

Zhang Fan immediately brought up the game's player leaderboard and, sure enough, saw a player's avatar with the ID "Little Willow Leaf Blade" lit up on the homepage.

Zhang Fan immediately sent a friend request to the other party.

[Player Little Willow Leaf Blade is not nearby, so I cannot add them as a friend.]

This game's mechanics are rubbish!

Zhang Fan remembered that in StarCraft 4, you could only add people nearby as friends.

Damn it! If the other person were nearby, I would have just talked to them directly. Why would I need to add them as a friend?!

I tried to message the other person privately, but they don't accept private messages from strangers by default and haven't changed their settings.

Zhang Fan was furious. What kind of lousy game is this?!

It seems the only option is to obediently grind monsters and level up, hoping to get a "Command of the World".

Level 1 beginners with swords and cloth armor can only kill level 1 poisonous insects.

But Zhang Fan didn't have time to waste here; he directly opened the game's consignment system.

This game hasn't been played by many people for a long time. Before leaving the game completely, many players like to put their equipment into the consignment system.

Even a legendary piece of equipment can be consigned for as little as 1 gold.

On the contrary, items like "Command of the World" are not available for sale on the consignment market because the final players prefer to chat on the forum.

As a newbie, Zhang Fan's player inventory comes with 1 gold. Unfortunately, many powerful equipment items also only cost 1 gold, but they have level restrictions, so he can't use them even if he buys them.

Zhang Fan set search criteria to see what weapon has the highest attack power, regardless of level.

The final result was a lightsaber with +9 attack power. Zhang Fan bought it without hesitation, threw away his beginner wooden sword, and went to cut down those level 10 hydras.

puff!

A level 10 Hydralisk can be one-shotted.

Goodness, after all, it's the weapon with the highest attack power across the entire server, regardless of level.

By grinding monsters 10 levels higher than me, my experience points skyrocketed, and leveling up felt like riding a rocket.

Zhang Fan felt frustrated. He had things to do that concerned the fate of all mankind, but instead he was just standing here mindlessly grinding monsters.

Zhang Fan quickly leveled up to level 10 by mindlessly hacking at Hydralisks. He checked the player leaderboard and saw that the other player's avatar was still lit up, indicating they were still online.

Zhang Fan immediately left the starting village and headed to the main city to complete the job change quest. After changing his job to a Bull Rider, he was able to move freely on the world map.

Zhang Fan immediately spent all the gold he had collected by farming Hydralisks to level up to level 10, bought a set of "Rise of the Tauren" professional gear that could be equipped at level 10 from the consignment system, and then went to farm Warbugs outside the north gate of the main city.

The war insect was like a giant spider, and Zhang Fan remembered that it would drop "Commands of the World".

puff!

Another one-shot kill.

This is the power of spending money.

Back in college, when I was hanging out with my roommates, it would have cost me over a thousand yuan to get all this gear.

Zhang Fan hacked away for an hour straight, wiping out all the war insects at the North Gate, but didn't get a single "Command of the World".

It is said that there is a one in a thousand chance that the War Bug will drop the "Command of the World", but this "chance" is a very low probability.

A lucky player might get the "Command of the World" after killing just one enemy, while an unlucky player might kill a thousand enemies and still not get it. But if you average them out, the chance is definitely one in a thousand.

That's fucking ridiculous! If I averaged my wealth with Jack Ma's, I'd still be a billionaire!

I'm definitely unlucky now.

An hour had passed, and the game console could no longer receive signals from Earth, so it automatically disconnected.

"ah……"

Zhang Fan lay on the floor of the treehouse, feeling completely unwell.

The old man entrusted me with such an important task, but I'm stuck here. If I can't send the message out, I'll become a sinner for all time in human history.

However, Zhang Fan racked his brains but couldn't think of any other way to contact Blue Star.

Are we supposed to go to Earth in a spacesuit?

However, the oxygen-generating materials in the spacesuit had been completely used up, and with the little oxygen left in the spacesuit, it was impossible to survive until reaching the ground.

Zhang Fan also wondered if there were other ways to provide oxygen to the spacesuit. For example, would it work to connect the spacesuit to the dome using bamboo?

Bamboo can be made into hollow tubes, which should theoretically be able to transport oxygen.

However, Zhang Fan quickly realized that this was simply not feasible. Even disregarding the sealing issue of the bamboo tube connections, the pressure difference between the inside and outside of the bamboo tubes was an insurmountable problem. The bamboo's toughness was insufficient to withstand the pressure difference, and it would burst open from the middle.

Ultimately, the only hope returned to the game. After all, through the game, an information channel between Mars and Earth had been established. Now, all that remained was to build the final information terminal and establish the chain of information exchange.

This "small scalpel" is the information terminal on the other side. Once it is found, the entire chain of information transmission will be fully established.

Zhang Fan lay on the bed scratching his head, wondering how he could find another player in the game. If they couldn't communicate, the only option was the simplest and most direct method: "running around the map" to find him.

The problem is that players can move around, and the other player may not stay in the same place waiting for them to find them.

But there's no other way now. Zhang Fan plans to try his luck tomorrow and visit some of the main cities and mission locations in the game. Maybe he'll suddenly go from being unlucky to lucky?

If it still doesn't appear, then wait until all the War Bugs have spawned, and then continue to kill War Bugs one by one to farm "Commands of the World".

The next evening, as soon as there was a signal, Zhang Fan logged into the game on time.

He glanced at the world chat interface, but there were still no new messages.

Since that's the case, Zhang Fan started exploring the map. Because "Southern Wild Pig" is a new account and the teleportation points haven't been activated yet, he can only explore one place at a time. There's no stamina limit in the game, so he just keeps exploring.

Every time Zhang Fan arrived at a new location, he would activate the teleportation point and then run around the nearest NPC gathering area and the main quest locations.

If you don't see anyone, then move on to the next place.

Zhang Fan kept running, occasionally checking the player rankings; "Little Willow Leaf Blade's" avatar was always lit up.

Checking the time, the war bugs should have all respawned. Zhang Fan teleported back to the main city where he had changed jobs and went to the north of the city to kill the war bugs.

In less than 10 minutes, Zhang Fan killed all 100 newly spawned war insects, but the "Command of the World" still hadn't dropped.

This is really annoying. It will take another hour for all the war bugs to spawn, and by then he will be forced offline. When will this ever end?

Has the loot drop mechanism been changed?

That would be even more of a pain. My roommate and I haven't paid attention to StarCraft 4 since we left it. If they really change the loot system in a game update, then all our efforts will have been for nothing.

That's fucking ridiculous!

Ding-dong—

[Server-wide System Announcement: Player Little Willow Leaf Blade has successfully defeated the Abyss Lord and obtained the Lord's gift, the "Plasma Gun." Let's congratulate this brave warrior!]

In StarCraft 4, whenever a world boss is defeated, a server-wide announcement is sent out.

"You're a real genius!" Zhang Fan couldn't help but yell.

He knew exactly where the Abyss Lord BOSS spawned!