At 6:30 in the morning, the sky was only just beginning to brighten.
Inside the room, Ji Li lay sprawled across the bed in an utterly unladylike starfish position, while the air conditioner hummed loudly, blowing cold air throughout the room.
She rolled over, and one long, fair leg kicked the blanket aside, leaving her completely exposed to the chilly air.
With none of the aloof, goddess-like image she usually maintained, Ji Li sneezed, rubbed her messy bird’s-nest hair, and groggily climbed out of bed.
“Hiss… Why does my head hurt so much this early in the morning?”
Muttering to herself, Ji Li shuffled into the bathroom in her slippers.
After a quick wash, she returned to her computer chair, skillfully booted up her computer, and prepared to log into the forum to look for guides to the pixel-style farming game she had recently become obsessed with.
As a cool and aloof-looking older-sister type who was secretly a hardcore gamer, checking game guides every morning had long since become part of her daily routine.
However, the moment she logged into the forum today, she noticed several unread private messages blinking in her account backend.
Ji Li held her milk carton between her teeth and curiously clicked them open.
The top message had been sent shortly after 1:00 AM.
[Malou Also Has Dignity]: “Hello, big shot!
Do you remember my ID?
Leave me your WeChat contact.
Let’s get all the brothers from the first closed beta into a group and play together in the future!”
Ji Li: “?”
She stared at the private message from [Malou Also Has Dignity], her mind filling with question marks.
What big shot?
What first closed beta?
The game she had been playing recently was obviously a single-player farming game.
When had she ever participated in some first closed beta?
And what was with this WeChat request?
Sending such shameless flattery in the middle of the night—wasn’t that obviously suspicious?
No matter how she looked at it, it seemed like someone trying to peddle some shady, unlicensed product.
And seriously, someone was actually using such an absurd username nowadays?
Ji Li’s sipping motion abruptly stopped.
Her pretty brows furrowed slightly.
Suddenly, as though she had thought of something, her expression darkened.
She turned toward the tightly closed door and shouted:
“Ji Luo!!!”
“Did you little brat secretly use my account again to play some weird game?!”
The room outside was silent for two seconds.
Then an excited voice belonging to a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy came from the neighboring room.
“Sis!
I found this new game last night, and it’s insanely awesome!
I don’t have time to talk right now.
The server is about to open, and I need to get in as soon as it goes online!”
Ji Li couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
Ji Luo was her younger brother.
He had just endured the brutal college entrance examination the previous month and was now like a wild horse that had finally been released from its cage, spending his days venting his pent-up energy in all kinds of games.
The awkward part was that he was still a month away from turning eighteen.
To get around the minor anti-addiction restrictions, the little brat had been using Ji Li’s secondary account every day to wreak havoc everywhere.
“An insanely awesome game?”
Hearing her brother praise it so highly, Ji Li became somewhat curious.
As a veteran gamer, she knew her tech-savvy younger brother all too well.
Ji Luo’s standards were notoriously high.
For a game to excite him so much that he would skip breakfast just to wait for its server to open…
What kind of masterpiece was it?
Ji Li’s curiosity was completely piqued.
She casually clicked into Malou’s profile and followed the trail to Lu Ziye’s post from the previous night:
Awakening of the Ancient Gods.
Looking at the “1KB installation package” mentioned in the post and the overwhelming ridicule from the netizens, Ji Li fell into deep thought.
…
At the same time, Ji Luo in the next room had already climbed into his game capsule.
He stared at the pitch-black icon labeled Awakening of the Ancient Gods in the center of his vision.
6:59 AM.
“Come on, come on!
I’m getting the first kill today!
No matter what, I have to level up as much as possible!”
Ji Luo was so excited that his palms were sweating.
Thinking about yesterday’s realistic tactile sensation of driving a wooden board into the back of that monster’s head, he felt goosebumps spread across his body.
That adrenaline-fueled thrill was something no ordinary skin-swapping online game could ever provide.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The clock finally reached 7:00 AM.
The originally dim game icon instantly lit up with a mesmerizing blue glow.
Ji Luo impatiently activated it with his consciousness.
Hum—!
This time, the game didn’t crudely dump him into the pitch-black church like it had yesterday.
Instead, accompanied by a low, solemn musical score, his entire field of vision was instantly engulfed by boundless gray fog.
Then, an epic scene that made Ji Luo’s scalp tingle slowly unfolded before him.
It was the opening CG that Lynn had spent 30 Faith Points on the previous night, having the system carefully construct it.
As the heavy fog parted, the first thing that appeared was a vast, desolate ruin.
There was no sun in the sky.
Only a strange crescent moon, partially obscured by scarlet mist, hung overhead, casting a dark-red glow across the land.
“When Ragnarok descends, the barrier of light shatters with a roar…”
A hoarse voice, seemingly emerging from the depths of ancient history, echoed in Ji Luo’s ears.
On the screen, magnificent temples that reached into the clouds began collapsing one after another.
Countless armored knights were torn apart beneath the tide of dark monsters.
The creatures were enormous and grotesque, their bodies covered in writhing tentacles and clusters of strange eyes.
Even through the screen, their appearance created an overwhelming sense of oppression and despair.
“The world falls into eternal night.
Filth ravages the wasteland, and the order of the old world has long since been reduced to ashes.”
The scene suddenly changed.
At the very edge of the fog, deep within a dark and damp Black Forest, an ancient idol stood silently amid the ruins.
Its body was covered in cracks, and most of it had already weathered away.
Then—
Its eyes suddenly ignited with a faint blue flame.
The flame was incredibly weak.
Yet within that endless darkness, it was dazzling.
“However, even among the ashes, sparks still remain.”
“Answer the call of the Lord of Ashes, lost outlander.”
“Awaken from death.
Purify this cursed wilderness.”
“And rebuild the supreme Divine Kingdom!”
BOOM!
Accompanied by a thunderous bass note that shook the soul, the fog violently dispersed before Ji Luo’s eyes.
In its place appeared a magnificent, translucent sacred hall glowing with a faint blue radiance.
Ji Luo stood frozen in place.
Goosebumps covered his entire body.
“Holy shit…”
“Holy shit!!”
The opening CG!
The cinematography!
The music!
That overwhelming sense of oppression!
Yesterday, when he entered the game, there hadn’t even been a proper opening screen.
And today, they had somehow produced something that looked like an epic Hollywood blockbuster!
This game company’s efficiency was absolutely insane!
Before Ji Luo could recover from the shock, a brand-new character creation interface suddenly appeared before his eyes.
At the very top of the interface was an input box:
[Please enter your player ID]
Last night, everything had happened too quickly.
The system hadn’t even given the players time to go through the normal character-creation process and had simply used the account ID bound to their VR devices.
As a result, a perfectly respectable young man like Ji Luo had spent half the night wandering around with a group of bald, muscular men while using his older sister Ji Li’s name.
Now that he had a chance to start over, he decisively entered his real name.
[Ji Luo]
[ID confirmation successful.
Currently weaving the body.]
Immediately afterward, a human character model with fully rendered real-time 3D effects appeared before him.
This time, players could finally bid farewell to their escaped-Shǎolín-Temple-convict era of bald heads and oversized shorts.
Although the available clothing was still limited to a pair of beginner linen shorts…
That wasn’t important!
Ji Luo stared at the character model in disbelief.
“I can customize the face?!”
“Holy shit, I can even choose my hairstyle!”