General Made: "Activate the outer ring, and we'll start testing once the sacred vessel is in place."
They are accelerating, and I must too!
Bai Zhiyuan's expression sharpened as she quickly moved through a tunnel from inside the facility to the outside.
Before her lay a废弃 platform, sloping precariously to the edge of her vision.
Surrounded by broken cliffs, the abyss below was filled with deadly poisonous mist that meant instant death upon contact.
Clearly,
The废弃 platform was the only path forward. Bai Zhiyuan looked towards the distant rows of platforms, some good, some bad, their arrangement revealing a pattern within the chaos.
"You are still you, and I am still me."
She quickly understood the designer's mindset. This was a standard Lu-style torment package.
Her favorite challenge segment!
It heavily tested the player's reaction time.
And their ability to utilize the interplay of folding reality and temporal shifts. This reaction time wasn't just about hand-eye coordination like in PC games.
In VR games, players needed to split their focus to control their body for platform jumps while simultaneously judging whether to switch between past or present based on the platform's condition.
A single misjudgment could lead to a fatal fall.
In reality, human energy is finite, and being overwhelmed is common.
It's like driving; you can't control the steering wheel on a high-speed highway with one hand while the other is busy climbing mountains and crossing grasslands in the passenger seat.
The risk factor is immense, and you might have to restart.
The classic player-breaking section.
Bai Zhiyuan's favorite moment of enjoyment.
*Buzz~~ Scrape!!*
Composing herself, Bai Zhiyuan decisively initiated the challenge, using temporal shifts to leap into the past.
The broken platforms before her instantly became brand new. The platforms made of glass were exceptionally safe, and Bai Zhiyuan jumped onto one.
The platform ahead was intact in the present time, but in the past, it was damaged. Bai Zhiyuan, now in the past, needed to switch back to the present.
Crucially, as soon as she stepped onto a platform, pursuers would appear from behind the cliff's edge, firing relentlessly, urging her to jump to the next platform immediately.
If she lingered on the current platform for more than 2 seconds, the pursuers behind her would also eliminate the player, forcing a restart.
Simply put,
After jumping onto a platform, she only had two seconds to react and leap to the next one.
This required a running start, a double jump, mid-air acceleration, all while observing the condition of the next platform to determine if there was glass to land on.
The seemingly ample time was actually extremely tight from the moment she landed on the platform.
*Tap tap tap—!!*
Even for Bai Zhiyuan, a mere 0.5-second pause on the platform to predict the jump resulted in her being shot down by the pursuers as she took off.
"It's a bit more difficult than I imagined."
Bai Zhiyuan hadn't anticipated the pursuers, giving her no time to pause, not even for 0.5 seconds.
This meant players had to retreat and start running the moment they landed to prepare for the next jump, and while airborne, they had to observe the platform ahead and react accordingly.
In reality, players had less than a second to make a judgment.
There were no pursuers originally. Lu Li designed this to reinforce the "torment" theme.
It wasn't exceptionally difficult in itself, just requiring time and patience.
It was necessary for Xue Wei to make players a bit frustrated.
This also served as a psychological prelude to the even more outrageous fan channel, which would truly test their skills.
After reviving, Bai Zhiyuan, having learned her lesson, retreated and took off again the moment she landed on the platform.
Damaged, requiring a temporal shift—*Buzz~~ Scrape!!*
*Thud—!!*
The moment she landed, she ran, jumped, intact, no switch needed.
*Thud—!!*
Landing steadily, Bai Zhiyuan directly ran and double-jumped to the aerial pavilion in the center of the cliff, dealt with the security there, and continued jumping.
Although she made the jumps, she felt she hadn't performed perfectly and could have been faster.
Challenging her limits was always her favorite activity.
She continued jumping intermittently until she reached the opposite shore, then Bai Zhiyuan deliberately plunged off the cliff on the other side, choosing to restart at the edge of the opposite cliff.
A one-life clear was the minimum requirement; the ultimate goal was a seamless, fluid, and visually pleasing performance.
There is a gap between people.
While Bai Zhiyuan pursued perfection, Mo Zhi was still struggling with brainstorming.
From initial confidence like 'easy,' 'I can clear this with my eyes closed,' and 'watch me one-life clear,' to frustration and shutting down, it took less than twenty minutes.
'Even a back-boarding master can encounter a Waterloo.'
'Streamer, don't just jump on the edges, try switching time.'
'I really admire the level designer, they're amazing!'
'It's parkour, run, don't be discouraged, streamer!'
...
This time, the viewers, uncharacteristically, did not offer sarcastic mockery to Mo Zhi. Her efforts were evident to all.
"Oh right... I still have the cheat tool, how could I forget about this thing!"
Prompted by the comments, Mo Zhi finally remembered the time-control device equipped on her wrist.
*Buzz~~ Scrape!!*
The screen flickered, and the first platform with only an edge instantly transformed into a glass walkway.
"Hahaha!!"
Mo Zhi was ecstatic, laughing excitedly as she jumped onto the platform, "No wonder this platform was designed so perversely; it can be played like this."
*Dada-da—!!*
"Eh, eh, eh?"
【You have died】
As soon as she spoke, security personnel who suddenly appeared behind her opened fire, eliminating Mo Zhi.
"Why did a group of people appear behind me? They weren't here before."
Mo Zhi was utterly bewildered. She switched time again, stepped onto the platform, and carefully observed the dynamics behind her. It turned out to be a butterfly effect caused by the temporal shift.
Soon, Mo Zhi also found herself in a scramble for time, facing chaos.
Without temporal shifts, there were no pursuers, but stepping on the edges easily led to falling off the cliff.
With temporal shifts, there were pursuers behind her, leaving her with too little time on the platform to think, let alone consider how to switch time to cross the next platform.
Therefore,
Another sad person appeared at the edge of the cliff, with pig-like screams echoing every few minutes.
After learning to switch time and jump platforms reasonably, Mo Zhi's self-imposed isolation healed, but she went mad.
...
Mo Zhi wasn't the only one who discovered that temporal shifts could help traverse platforms reasonably. Teachers Ma, Piao, Liu Pei Qie, and other streamers were all making good use of their devices.
But the pursuers behind them quickly taught them a lesson, and the screams at the cliff's edge multiplied.
As for Sister Zhou...
"Aiya—"
"You group of stealth zombies, stop chasing me!!"
Sister Zhou, on a 2G network, was still playing a fun game of hide-and-seek with the stealth security guards.
Dai Xiaomei, meanwhile, was leisurely strolling through "Journey of the Wind," uncharacteristically not competing for the traffic of Lingjing.
"Brothers, this game is really great, whose game is this?"
...
Similarly, not all top streamers were vying for the traffic of Lingjing's torment-style gameplay.
Da Mahou, a player prone to motion sickness, found a VR game called "Journey of the Wind" outside of DNF that he could play without feeling dizzy.
This broadened his future streaming career significantly.
San Ren from Bilibili was invited to the premiere ceremony of Tencent's "Holy War." To go from unknown to being invited by a major studio in just one year was truly an inspirational story for Bilibili.
As for rising stars like zC, Hei Mao, and Da Ha Yu, they did not participate in VR games for various reasons, spending their days streaming the side activities of "Ark of Doom."
They were eagerly anticipating the update of new chapters in Lingjing, so much so that their flowers had withered. In response, Lingjing, actively developing VR games, could only offer an apology and ask for patience.
The veteran console streamers, however, leaned more towards niche overseas masterpieces.
The new masterpieces from various manufacturers were all of high quality, a true battle of titans, not an exaggeration.
...
Meanwhile, Mo Zhi, with her back-boarding prowess, managed to memorize the sequence of all the platforms and pushed through.
She thought the painful torment would end here.
However,
She was completely overwhelmed by the segment involving temporal shifts through ventilation ducts and crossing rotating fan blades.
...