Twenty-four hours later, the teleportation array split into three, labeled Normal, Hard, and Nightmare. The instance access system had also been updated, opening daily from 7:30 to 8:00 in the morning. Players could choose not to enter, or enter an instance of any difficulty.
Equipped Skills: Water Substitution Technique, Three Short of One.
Equipped Items: 3 Metal Thunder Talismans, 1 set of throwing knives.
Standing before the teleportation arrays, Ding Shi hesitated, wavering between Hard and Nightmare.
Ding Shi had originally been a positive, rational, and cautious man. Even though he had found himself inside a criminal syndicate, a patch of fertile soil for justice had remained in his heart. What altered his temperament was Shabi. Shabi had erased Ding Shi's identity as a police officer, and with it, stripped away that fertile soil of justice. From that moment on, despair took root in his heart, leaving him with an attitude of reckless abandon toward life, ultimately driving him to take Shabi and Wang Meng down with him in mutual destruction.
In the end, Ding Shi chose Nightmare.
Upon entering the instance preparation room, the system prompted Ding Shi to select a terrain: Rainforest, Forest, Plain, Grassland, Desert, Gobi, or Snowfield.
With so little information provided, Ding Shi brainstormed to figure out what kind of instance this was. The absence of oceans and lakes among the terrain options was a vital clue. He was fairly certain this choice represented a spawn point, and extreme terrains like snowfields, deserts, and the Gobi were out of the question.
Rainforest: extremely rich in resources, but crawling with venomous insects.
Forest: abundant in timber.
Plain: suitable for farming.
Grassland: suitable for grazing.
Ding Shi decided to rank them by danger level. The most dangerous was undoubtedly the rainforest, though it was equally rich in resources. Next was the grassland, followed by the forest, and finally the plain.
Players who chose Nightmare difficulty were almost all confident, but that did not mean they would pick the most hazardous environment. Ding Shi had never been to a rainforest, but he had a friend who was an outdoor survival enthusiast. That friend had once planned to survive in the Amazon rainforest for twenty-one days, only to tap out in less than a week.
According to his friend, the most dangerous living creatures in the Amazon were insects. Second to that were pathogens; in the absence of medical supplies, even a minor cut could easily lead to a deadly infection.
After long deliberation, Ding Shi chose the forest.
Instance: Humans.
Instance Background: Primitive Era.
"Due to primitive humans having extremely low life expectancies and differing significantly from modern humans, players will randomly draw one to three negative debuffs to better experience life in the Primitive Era."
As the subtitles faded, hundreds of cards materialized on the long table before him.
Subtitle: "Please choose a card."
Ding Shi glanced at his Luck stat—9 points. Delighted, he readied himself.
Darting his hand down like a pecking chick, he snatched up a card and turned it over: "Malnutrition: Stamina consumption doubled. Please draw another card."
Ding Shi cursed inwardly. His hand struck again like a pecking chick, flipping over another: "Illiterate: Incapable of reading and writing. Fuck me!"
The good news was that he did not have to draw again.
Next came a video introducing primitive humans. They lived in caves, used only the most rudimentary stone tools, sustained themselves by hunting and gathering, and migrated frequently.
Could modern humans survive when dropped into such a primitive living environment?
The preparation time ran out.
A dense primeval forest stretched outward, dotted with towering, ancient trees. Near a sheer rock face lay a clearing of about five hundred square meters, with two large caverns carved into the cliffside.
In a flash of light, one hundred players materialized in the clearing. The male players wore only animal-hide shorts, while the female players were also provided with hide bras and camisoles. To protect players, these system-issued outfits were indestructible. The system would not stop players if romance blossomed, though the chances of exploiting bugs in Yita World were virtually nonexistent.
Logically speaking, a crowd of a hundred people suddenly appearing together would look around, size one another up, and gather information.
Yet sometimes logic flew straight out the window. Ding Shi and Wang Meng, for instance, were already locked in combat the instant their eyes met. The moment their gazes locked, Wang Meng bowled through several onlookers and threw a massive fist straight toward Ding Shi's face. Ding Shi leaned back and snapped a high kick upward, his heel driving toward Wang Meng's jaw. Wang Meng pulled his fist back to parry, and both men retreated two paces.
Wang Meng and Ding Shi stared each other down for a long while, neither willing to yield. In the end, Wang Meng broke the silence. "Pointless."
Ding Shi showed no mercy. "Pointless, my ass! I helped you build your empire, and you tried to put a bullet in me. And you call that pointless?"
Wang Meng snarled, "Because you're a fucking rat!"
Ding Shi replied, "Did I ever do anything to wrong you?"
Wang Meng said, "Fine, you helped me plenty, but deep down, your whole goal was to destroy me!"
Ding Shi said, "A gentleman judges by actions, not thoughts."
Wang Meng nearly choked on his own blood. Waving his hand dismissively, he said, "I'm not arguing with you."
Ding Shi scoffed, "Because you can't win."
Seeing that the two were on the verge of brawling again, someone stepped forward to intervene. "If the two of you have personal grudges, please take them elsewhere to settle. We need to run this tribe properly right now. I propose we elect a leader first."
Ding Shi shot him a provocative glare, but Wang Meng refused to look his way.
Deep down, Wang Meng felt in the wrong about the matter. Even though Ding Shi was an undercover agent, after discovering Ding Shi's true identity, Wang Meng had shot him from behind under Shabi's instigation without ever talking to Ding Shi or asking whether he was willing to abandon righteousness and embrace a life of crime.
The reason Wang Meng had acted so rashly was threefold. First was sheer fury; he could not accept that his best brother had been an undercover cop all along. Second was Shabi's manipulation. Third was fear; Ding Shi was the hall master of the Fenghuo Hall in the Dragon Gang, and had Ding Shi struck first, he might have crushed Wang Meng entirely.
Only then did Ding Shi open his system interface.
Main Quest 1: Advance to the Stone Age.
Requirement 1: Master fire, and keep the flames burning continuously for five days.
Requirement 2: Craft twenty high-quality stone tools and twenty high-quality stone weapons.
"Everyone, lend me your ears for a moment!" A middle-aged man stepped onto a large boulder. "May I ask if anyone here has corporate management experience?"
Ding Shi glanced toward Wang Meng. Go on, step up! You run ten halls and command over three thousand foot soldiers—doesn't that beat running some company?
Wang Meng did not spare him a single glance. All right, he hadn't noticed; he was busy contemplating whether triad management was applicable to primitive cavemen.
Amid the silence, a man around thirty years old raised his hand, walked over to the middle-aged man, and climbed onto the boulder. "Hello, everyone. My name is Yu Yuan. Before entering Yita World, I was the owner of a mid-sized enterprise. If you can trust me, I'll temporarily serve as chieftain."
Since no one knew one another, nobody objected to Yu Yuan's proposal, though no one openly voiced support either.
Yu Yuan waited a moment, then spoke up: "Since there are no objections, I'll begin dividing us into teams. Team One: Scouts. We need to explore outward, survey resources, and look for game. Team Two: Firekeepers. We need to get a fire going and chop down a sufficient supply of fuel. It's eight-ten in the morning, and despite being under direct sunlight, we still feel cold. That means temperatures will plummet at night."
Yu Yuan continued, "Team Three: Foragers. The Stone Age was a matriarchal society, largely because women excelled at gathering and commanded the primary productive forces. Therefore, the foraging team must secure basic food for all one hundred of us. Until the scouts report back, we won't form a hunting team."
Yu Yuan went on, "Team Four: Tools and Weapons. We need stone axes, javelins, and spears. These are weapons we can acquire relatively easily right now."
Yu Yuan finished, "Team Five: Logistics. Gather leaves and dry foliage, and make our living quarters as comfortable as possible."
Yu Yuan pointed from left to right. "Scouts gather here, firekeepers here, foragers here, tool and weapon makers here, and logistics here. I'll make adjustments based on headcount."
Yu Yuan spoke in a measured, pleasant tone, without dramatic swings in emotion. To organize teams so effectively in such short order, he clearly already possessed a structured vision for building a tribe. He was undeniably a capable man.
Chapter 66