Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

More importantly, it was a gun.

This might sound like nonsense, but for Cangniao, shooting a gun was truly much simpler than swinging a sword!

How long had he been using guns in the virtual world?

Even if he took away those magical skills and threw him into reality, he had confidence in quickly mastering any gun he had seen in the game.

He could even guarantee a shooting accuracy for a fixed target within 10 meters.

Not to mention now he was in the game.

Cangniao calmly watched that huge and bloody eye appear in the night sky and swiftly flew towards him, then calmly aimed and fired.

Even though he had to move and dodge constantly later, he did not miss a single shot in the first stage.

But in the second stage, the probability of missing shots increased noticeably when faced with small eyeballs flying chaotically.

Noticing the difficulty of shooting small moving targets with his firearm, Cangniao quickly changed tactics—

The firearm targeted the BOSS only, and when the small eyeballs detached from the BOSS, he would wait for them to get close before hacking them apart with his iron sword.

After taking a few bites from the small eyeballs, he successfully pushed the BOSS into the third stage.

At that time, Cangniao began to tense up.

Not only because the BOSS’s difficulty increased, but also due to a metaphysical rule—

[Whenever Cangniao is about to achieve a first kill/first completion, a mysterious person will pop out and steal his glory.]

Many viewers often joked in the live broadcast room: “Do you envy the anchor’s skills? Traded with luck!”

With a nervous mood, Cangniao used every trick in his book, battling the BOSS while moving and dodging on the mid-air platform.

When the BOSS’s health was only left with a tiny bit, his heart rose to his throat.

He even got too nervous and was accidentally knocked off the platform by the BOSS!

And he was already at critical health.

Falling from such a great height, he would surely die upon landing!

In the midst of the fall, Cangniao had no time to think, quickly lifted his gun to aim, and fired two shots in succession at the chasing BOSS!

Both shots hit accurately!

The second shot even triggered a critical hit, dealing 54 damage points, and directly emptying the BOSS’s last bit of health!

But at the same time, Cangniao’s body hit the ground and instantly died.

As a disembodied soul, Cangniao looked down at his own tombstone and the BOSS’s remains in the distance, unsure who died first.

“No way… Instead of a player ambushing me, the BOSS is messing with me?” Cangniao looked up at the night sky in the game, speechlessly questioning heaven.

And “heaven” responded to him.

A line of big words appeared in front of him—

「Player [Cangniao], first kill of [Eye of Cthulhu] in expert mode, triggers a special progress reward.

Rewards will be issued after the [Survival Challenge] ends.」

Seeing this, the live broadcast room exploded instantly:

“Holy shit! A world announcement! I can see it here too!”

“Amazing!!! (Cracked voice)”

“Special reward?! I really want to know what it is!”

“If it’s a physical reward, would Cangniao Boss consider selling it? We can negotiate the price no matter what!”

…

“Finally!” Cangniao, with his emotions soaring and dipping, was so excited that words couldn’t describe it, “My turn has finally arrived!”

“Watch! When I get the reward, I’ll show it off on my forehead for a whole week! I won’t even take it off when sleeping!!”

“Revive, let’s go again! This is just the beginning; there are many rewards to come!”

While excited, Cangniao didn’t forget to make grand claims, planning to claim more first kills!

However, after returning to the menu interface, perhaps noticing the “world announcement” just now, he saw the dazzling [production team] option and clicked on it out of curiosity.

Then he felt that several names inside seemed to be familiar.

Out of curiosity, he recorded these names, found the producers’ pages of Cloud Dream’s other games, and made a comparison.

Soon, he discovered something quite ridiculous—

“Brothers! The production team of this heavy taste mod is actually the same as the freaking ‘Light Encounter’??!!”

“How come the games created by the same team are totally two extremes?”

“Did they suffer some psychological trauma?

As for the questions raised by Cangniao, the live-streamer community immediately thought of a reasonable answer—

“Most likely, Lincoln couldn’t bear it and seriously got involved in guiding them!”

“Dead Dad from ‘Assassins’ Alliance’, Dead Wife from ‘Speed Chase’, Dead for Themselves from ‘Terraria’, this is too fitting!”

Then, a large number of malicious players went to the Vortex Forum of “Light Encounter” and the Cloud Dream Gaming Zone to “promote Terraria” to “Light Encounter” players.

The wording was highly consistent—

[Same team behind “Light Encounter” for a genuine experience!]

[Warm your heart, engraved in your memory, a gaming journey you’ll never forget!]

[Play well, and receive free “Light Encounter” character merchandise!]

…

Not too many people got tricked.

But those who did unfortunately were Mavis’ largest group of guests welcomed to the Spring Meadow.

Before, they were only a few players coming from time to time.

And most of them were reluctant to admit that they were scared, saying things like “accident”, “carelessness”, and “going back to continue playing”.

But this time, as many as 400 female players arrived at once, instantly making Mavis’ welcome area lively.

The players face’s were all pale-white and looked like they were immediately going to curse at any moment.

Mavis quickly trotted over to comfort them.

There hasn’t been anyone here for so long, and now Mavis has finally welcomed a large number of guests so she’s naturally very happy.

Soon, the Spring Meadow became a bustling place, and the atmosphere became relaxed.

*

On the other side, Camille Victoria’s mood in the game was also getting lighter.

Durring their exploration, they encountered a “Rain of Slimes” event, with various colored slimes raining down from the sky.

Camille Victoria looked up at the sky and saw pink, green, and blue slimes as round and cute as jelly rolling around, finding the scene to be truly dreamy.

The more she looked at it, the more she liked it.

“These slimes are so cute!” said Camille Victoria happily.

Just as she finished speaking, she brandished her Demon Bow and shot down the cute slimes one by one in mid-air!

No mercy at all.

Her teammates were also wielding their huge Magic Light Swords and their Fire Guns obtained from breaking Shadow Beads found online, frantically slaughtering the slimes on the ground, producing a grass-cutting effect.

Until a message appeared in front of all four players at the same moment:

‘King Slime has awakened…’

Then they saw a giant blue slime, big enough for four or five people to hug, appeared out of nowhere!

But as a BOSS, King Slime didn’t cause as much SAN loss as the Eye of Cthulhu because it was even a little cute.

The fight wasn’t too hard; they just had to dodge it when it jumped into the sky, avoid being squashed, and not stray too far from the BOSS to prevent it from teleporting. Finally, they just needed to clear the small slimes summoned by the King Slime.

Camille Victoria’s team only had one death, and they successfully killed the BOSS.

Upon opening the loot bag, they received an unidentifiable Solidification Device, a Ninja Hood, a Slime Commemorative Badge, and the Sticky Saddle, which Camille Victoria was most excited about.

After using the item, a squishy, round, blue slime with a saddle on top jumped out!

Camille Victoria and her teammates first curiously touched the first slime that didn’t attack them and realized that it indeed had the same texture as jelly.

So soft and slippery!

Among the four people, only Camille Victoria received this item, making the others envious.

Camille Victoria rode the slime and found it to move according to her will, without any need for training.

The only problem was: it walked slowly and had to bounce!

Luckily, it could jump quite high, about as high as a four-story building!

This made her excitedly bounce around on the slime for a while.

Once she had enough fun, Camille Victoria suggested, “Let’s go break a few more Shadow Beads? One Fire Gun isn’t enough, we should all get one!”

She was actually quite resistant to the underground environment in the Land of Corruption.

Not only were there disgusting monsters flying around, the environment itself was nauseating, and even the dirt had an awful purple hue.

But when she was clearing the small slimes summoned by King Slime, she felt that the Fire Gun was more useful than the bow and arrow.

So, she wanted to get herself one as well.

If they got a Fire Gun after breaking the first Shadow Bead, that meant the Fire Gun could drop from there; even if it wasn’t a guaranteed drop, just break a few more, right?

“Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

The teammates also agreed, and the other three players wanted to get a gun as well, so they were all in agreement!

Seeing the four players getting ready with their bombs and rushing back towards the Land of Corruption, the well-informed viewers in the live broadcast room were already silently turning on video recording software, preparing to record the “exciting moments” to come.