Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 884: Chapter 840 “Mechanism City and the Warrior”_1 Chapter 884: Chapter 840 “Mechanism City and the Warrior”_1 When the shaking stopped, Chang Niao again released the Mechanical Birds, only to find that the terrain around him had completely changed.

This somewhat made him freak out:

“I can wander into circles in a static labyrinth, now it even started to rotate?!”

“Can anyone even play this???”

After freaking out for three minutes, he made a tough decision:

“Mechanism City exploration, need 4, hurry up!”

Mechanism City is huge, but because of its maze-like layout, the paths aren’t very wide, and with all kinds of triggered traps, it is not suitable for large scale team actions.

Especially considering Cloud Dream’s dynamic difficulty mechanism, having too many people could either increase or lower the difficulty.

After considering these, Chang Niao decided to stick to the classic five-person team approach to tackle the high difficulty of Mechanism City.

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However, he definitely could not let just anyone join his team——

“Only those with a good memory and sense of direction!

If your directional abilities are poor, we don’t need you.

Having one person with no sense of direction in the team is already enough!”

Source: AllNovelFull.com, updated on օνǤᴑ.сο

After Chang Niao had consumed a lot of time, many from the first team of players had gradually caught up and reached Mechanism City through the tunnel in the backyard of Francis’s shop.

Apart from this, many players who didn’t bother with the main tasks started to make their own efforts to explore Mechanism City and join in on the fun.

However, this was not easy.

Players who hadn’t completed the [Trial of the Sword] task could not meet the fame level requirements.

When they told Francis they were Shirley’s own brother/sister, he simply did not believe them ——

“Where’s this rural villager from, claiming to be the relative of my loved disciple out of the blue?”

“Do I look that easy to fool?”

…

As for those who tried to break in——

Without a master to lead the way, trying to survive through the underground tunnel set up by the Mechanism Technique Master is not an easy task….

Only the most persistent players were able to form teams and pave a way to the bronze gate of Mechanism City by risking their lives.

Yi and Yelang were two such players.

By relying on the help of their brothers in the Bathroom Group, they managed to reach the bronze gates of the Mechanism City, paving the way with their lives at stake.

Including Yi and Yelang, the 10-person exploration team embarked on their journey through Mechanism City.

However, these people were not very serious——

When they reached a junction, the Amulets of Repelling Evil on the chests of the five people at the front started vibrating.

So, everyone stopped and started looking for traps on the floor with the patience of demining experts.

This wasn’t an exaggeration.

Earlier, someone had accidentally stepped on a trap, was flung twenty meters into the air by a giant spring trap, and then fell to his death from a great height…

The lightness skills in “Chang’an” still upheld basic respect for physics.

Even at the highest level, it was just capable of walking on water and leaving no footprints in snow.

This kind of spiraling ascension by stepping on one foot with the other in mid-air was impossible.

While everyone was on the ground, knocking on the floor inch by inch, an old chap looked at his incessantly vibrating Amulet of Repelling Evil and suddenly had a whimsical thought: “Do you think anyone put the jade pendant in a strange place?”

“What do you mean?” Another member asked casually.

“Um…pocket in their underwear?”

“???” Everyone simultaneously stopped their work and turned towards him.

“What’s wrong?” The old man was startled.

Before they could delve deeper into why he had a pocket in his underwear, another older member spoke up:

“Speaking of this, I’m reminded of the vibration rod… I mean the ‘Metal Detector’ from Terraria.

When that thing vibrates, it’s way more intense than this.”

When one person speaks something suggestive, it might be a bit awkward, but when two people do it, the atmosphere changes.

Soon, a third teammate joined the conversation: “So when will Cloud Dream relax the Private Space rules a bit, let us have some fun in the game?”

“Oh, you want to try the detector?”

“I wouldn’t mind, but to be honest, I’m more interested in trying out a slime.”

“Slime??” Yi turned back in shock, “Are you even human?”

“Slime…” Yelang thought about the jelly-like slime in Terraria, his eyes wide in surprise.

The chap who mentioned wanting to try the Slime didn’t mind his teammate’s shocking reaction, instead, it seemed like he was lost in particular kind of fantasy–

“Hehehe, blue slime, green slime, pink slime…

Then call over good buddies to join.”

“???”

The other members, feeling their worldview being challenged, subconsciously moved away from this teammate.

Only Winter Melon blurted out, “What buddy?

Isn’t that your man?”

Yi raised his voice: “Stop, stop, stop!

Otherwise, I will lose my streaming room again!”

“Click.”

Yelang: “Did you hear anything?”

“What sou…F*ck!”

The ground—split open!

At the bottom of a ten-foot-deep pit were densely packed sharp spikes that inspired fear.

Only three people reacted quickly enough to jump away, the remaining seven unfortunate souls fell into the trap and were impaled.

“Doctor!

Doctor!”

Winter Melon’s secondary profession was a physician, and he had brought a large amount of healing medicine with him.

The teammates who were impaled didn’t die immediately, and the severity of their injuries seemed to lessen the pain.

They managed to call for help as their health bars rapidly decreased.

But standing at the edge of the trap, Winter Melon shook his head and said,

“They’re beyond saving, wait for death, farewell.”

He really did leave the pit afterward.

He went to the side and sat down to watch the live streaming—he was planning to wait for them to re-spawn and then regroup.

*

The teams of Yi and Yelang were just the tip of the iceberg.

At this very moment, countless players had entered the “Mechanism City & Warrior” segment.

In countless mirrored ‘Mechanism City’ instances, teams of players suffered severe damage, experiencing repeated deaths amidst the swarms of tricky monsters and deadly traps.

“The difficulty is off the charts.”

This was the most direct impression for many players.

If it were not for the massive rewards, many would have given up by now.

—In Mechanism City, not only were the monsters bizarre, their drops were equally strange and powerful.

Various types of clockwork guns were not to be mentioned— even the lowest power type was much more powerful than the flintlocks developed by players before, whether in terms of reloading mechanism, range, or power.

There were also all kinds of clockwork axes, clockwork swords, clockwork chainsaws, clockwork hammers…

Each more outrageous than the last.

Especially the clockwork chainsaw, which used the power of the clockwork to rotate the chainsaw!

It’s unclear how much damage these weapons could inflict during close combat with players, but their effectiveness in dismantling mechanical puppets was absolutely first-class!

Of course, the sight of a giant clockwork spider charging at you with four chainsaws was absolutely terrifying!

The longer players explored the Mechanism City and the more intelligence they acquired, the more outrageous it seemed—

To the point where it felt like the game’s genre had changed!

On the surface, Chang’an City offered the orthodox style of ancient martial arts.

But when everyone thought this was a martial arts game, fantasy elements of demons and monsters turned up.

And the moment everyone thought it was a fantasy-themed game, sci-fi elements began to show up!

—Ancient sci-fi is still sci-fi after all!

According to the storyline, generations of Mechanism Technique Masters have created unbelievable objects within the Mechanism City using nothing but clockwork as a means of power:

Clockwork people, clockwork spiders, clockwork lions, clockwork crabs, clockwork birds…

Clockwork doors, clockwork cars, clockwork clocks, clockwork music boxes, even clockwork guns and clockwork trains!

Every new thing astounded the players.

They even guessed that the entire Mechanism City was built on the basis of one or more miraculous coils of clockwork!

That the city could move and transform like a machine was due to these one or more coils of clockwork!

Although the efficiency of this perpetual motion machine seemed a touch too outrageous…

But in a virtual world, it’s definitely possible!

Nowadays, players were exploring Mechanism City while passionately discussing:

What should this style, that has progressed further past the ‘ancient steampunk’ of Francis’ underground cellar, be called?

[Clockwork punk]?

Or [Mechanism Punk]?

*

While the players were engaged in intense discussions and the popularity of Mechanism City kept rising, Shuihua, Lance and Victoria finally completed the [Sword Testing] quest and came here to Francis’ to receive the Mechanism City quest.

Victoria was very optimistic about this:

“Since the task requires us to find the[Relic], the most important thing is probably not combat power, but to explore as deep into the maze as possible.”

“And if you want to delve deep into a massive, complex, self-moving bronze maze, luck obviously plays a huge role!”

“Speaking of luck… there’s the legendary ‘Lucky Emperor’ in our team!”

“Once we reach Mechanism City, we might not even need to search, the maze itself might just straighten the correct path out for us!”

…

Victoria didn’t know yet: the so-called ‘Lucky Emperor’ she was referring to was harboring a bold idea in his mind.

An idea that emerged suddenly after learning the location of Mechanism City.