Chapter 14 The Eve of the Storm

A week had passed in the blink of an eye since the mall incident.

Today was April 30th. When the midnight bells chimed, the preliminary round of the Apex Contenders' Battle would officially begin.

Over the past week, the levels of the four members of Hell Front had naturally increased. Feng Bujue was now the highest level, at thirty-four with more than half of the experience bar filled. Si Yu, Bei Ling, and Xiao Tan were all still at level thirty-three.

In fact... if Jue-ge had gone all out to level up, with the advantage of gaining 40% experience from clearing a script, he could have easily challenged for the top spot on the leaderboard.

But he clearly didn't intend to do so...

Firstly, he didn't want to create too large a level gap between himself and his teammates, as that would increase the difficulty of team scripts and wouldn't benefit his specialization growth.

Secondly, after the leading group of players had basically crossed the level thirty threshold, the rankings on the level leaderboard had remained very stable. If someone on the level leaderboard suddenly advanced by leaps and bounds, defeating all enemies and charging to the forefront, they would easily be exposed... Even anonymity wouldn't work; as soon as you queue for a team script, you'll encounter people, and as soon as you encounter people, they'll see your level. In Thriller Paradise, there were only a handful of people who had reached level thirty-six, and most of those around level thirty-five were professional players belonging to studios. If Jue-ge didn't control his level, he wouldn't be far from becoming famous...

Of course, there was another reason why Feng Bujue repeatedly gave up experience rewards—he wanted to draw Excellent-grade equipment.

The [Type Zero Magic Guidance Crusher] was definitely a bottomless abyss. In addition to the three pieces of equipment that went into it on the morning of the 24th, it had swallowed a full ten Excellent-grade items in the past seven days. Eight of these ten items were drawn from the extra rewards, and two were cheap, useless items that Feng Bujue had found at the auction house.

Jue-ge also filled three pieces of equipment into it during the second creation, but it failed.

This time, the machine's success rate was accumulated to 6.01%...

And during the third creation, the naive someone told himself--"Things should not be done more than three times," so he gritted his teeth and stomped his foot, filling four pieces of equipment into it, but... it still failed...

At this point, the machine's success rate had accumulated to 10.01%...

By the fourth creation, Feng Bujue's mentality was similar to those gamblers sitting in front of slot machines, still playing after losing hundreds of thousands.

So, another three pieces, continuing to fail...

The success rate reached 13.01%, but Feng Bujue's patience was nearing zero... However, he didn't go crazy.

Coincidentally, compared to the past, the probability of Jue-ge drawing Excellent-grade equipment had increased significantly in the past seven days. Although he would occasionally get things like stones and toy baseball bats, in most cases, as long as he chose to draw equipment, he could at least get something above the Common grade. This was probably also related to his level; after all, he was already over level thirty. The reward of [Randomly Draw a Piece of Equipment Corresponding to Your Level] couldn't just give him a pile of dung and mark it as a holy_crap (slang, meaning something similar to "Oh my god," literally translatable as holy shit) in the remarks, right?

It was just a pity... the quality of the drawn items had gone up, but he hadn't drawn anything truly valuable. They were basically useless things that would cost more in handling fees than they'd earn at auction. Even if he didn't fill them into the crusher, they'd probably be sold to the store anyway. That's why Jue-ge filled them into the machine.

From this, it can be seen that Feng Bujue was not a pure gambler. At least he hadn't lost his mind yet, or he would have stripped off all the good equipment on his body and filled it into the machine.

Compared to Jue-ge, the performance of other players in these ten days could be described as truly "crazy."

As the date of the Apex Contenders' Battle approached day by day, various ripple effects surged like monstrous waves.

Let's talk about the forums first...

During this time, the number of posts on the forums ushered in the second peak since the launch of the open beta. Titles like "How to Quickly Reach Level 30 in XX (where XX could be ten days, eight days, a week, or even five days for the bolder ones)" were everywhere, and each one was a hit.

The replies in the posts were also very interesting. For example, one guy ran to the second floor of all similar posts and copied and pasted the sentence, "To everyone downstairs, you've already regretted spending your leveling time reading this guide."

In addition, titles like "My Views on the Contenders' Battle System" and "Which Time Period in May is Least Likely to Encounter Professional Players in Queue" could also get a lot of clicks. To be honest, reading these posts was a real waste of time... If you could advance by studying the system, the national football team would have been a regular in the World Cup long ago.

There were also some purely strategy posts, such as "Weapon Selection and Skill Combination for Shooting-Type Players," "On the Power of the Summoning Specialization Wretched Stream," etc. The level of these posts varied, depending on the poster's game level and writing ability. Some people played well but couldn't necessarily write a good strategy, while others wrote flowery prose with great confidence, but their strategies might not be accurate due to their limited level.

The most important thing was... in a game like Thriller Paradise, where players' individual characteristics were particularly distinct, it was hard to say whether learning from other people's growth patterns would be helpful or misleading...

Now let's talk about the game itself.

The leveling enthusiasm of players of all levels was unprecedented. Those who hadn't reached level thirty wanted to get the registration qualification as soon as possible, while those who had reached level thirty wanted to establish a level advantage and accumulate strength.

Among all the game modes, the queue rate for Survival Mode had clearly increased recently. Many players who didn't like PK or weren't good at PK, like Xiao Tan, for example... during the days before the Contenders' Battle, they had also invested in the "fighting with people" craze, gradually getting used to the atmosphere and rhythm of battle.

The buying and selling in the auction house was even more popular than ever before... In the twenty-six days since the server opened, Thriller Paradise's popularity, social influence, and number of players had been steadily increasing. On the eve of the Contenders' Battle, it had surged rapidly. And the increase in the number of players, the number of online users, and the online time meant more scripts being generated and more items being brought out of the scripts... Eventually, these things would be reflected in the trading volume of the auction house.

The Apex Contenders' Battle, as the first major event in the game, undoubtedly made the vast majority of players flock to it. When they became "old players" in the future, they could say to those newcomers, "Tch... back in the day, during the first Apex Contenders' Battle, I did this and that..." That would definitely be a very respectable thing.

Conversely, if you were already in Thriller Paradise when a major event occurred, but you hadn't leveled up to thirty, or you entered the preliminary round but were eliminated before completing all fifty matches, then you wouldn't have anything to talk about in the future... You couldn't help but feel like, "I'm already in the martial world, but there's no legend of me in the martial world. If you dig to the bottom, you can only ask about my shame."

Of course, situations like Si Yu and Bei Ling were exceptions. They were purely casual players and were also high rollers. They weren't obsessed with winning or losing, and they didn't want to become famous. If these types of people weren't interested in the competition, they wouldn't participate.

After talking about the players, finally, we have to talk about the game company's situation...

As the battle was approaching, Dream Inc. adhered to their consistent style--responding to all changes with constancy. They were like a monopolistic enterprise exuding an arrogant and hateful face, making those fans who were in pain and happiness silently hand over their knees.

Logically speaking, at this time, ordinary game companies would adopt a profiteering attitude and launch various money-grabbing strategies...

For example, they could pack a bunch of special items, crown them with a bloody name like "Apex Contenders' Battle Preparation Gift Pack," set a price of 998, and lure some bumpkins to hook up, letting them show off their superiority or something.

Or, they could raise the price or pack and promote the double experience cards, which had doubled in sales recently.

They could also launch a few new items, such as five-times experience cards, script difficulty downgrade cards... Although there was a possibility of disrupting the game balance, as long as they did a so-called "limited sale," they could justifiably rip people off at a high price. They could even do a "bundled sale," for example, if you bought a game pod, I'll give you a virtual item or something...

These methods had been played by countless unscrupulous merchants in the past years and had proven to be effective. With the current popularity of Thriller Paradise, they could completely copy them and definitely make a lot of money.

But Dream Inc. was just so unique... just so steady...

At this critical juncture, they didn't make a single move.

Even the exchange rate between RMB and game currency remained stable, only changing from 1:2000 to 1:1900. This fluctuation was not much different from the weekly natural fluctuation. Obviously, Dream Inc. had no intention of raising the price of game currency. This attitude instead stimulated the market, giving players more confidence in the game company. Many players who never spent money in the game couldn't help but open their wallets.

However... Dream Inc. also had another characteristic--they don't make a sound until they shock the world.

Sure enough, on April 30th, they announced a shocking message on their official website...

At 5:00 PM that afternoon, the specific rules for the preliminary round, the semi-finals, and the finals were announced, named [War of the Worms], [War of the Cocoons], and [War of the Butterflies], respectively. The three wars would successively determine the top three thousand, top one hundred, and top fifty players.

After these three wars, the remaining fifty people would be qualified to participate in the real [Apex Contenders' Battle].

And along with this pile of rules announcements, there was also this piece of information: [Until 0:00 on May 1st, which is the registration deadline. The system will select ten "Special Invited Players" from all the registered players to directly enter the War of the Butterflies.]