Chapter Three: Shot Even When Hanging in the Air

“Isn’t this gift box something everyone gets?” Huang Yunshuo hurriedly checked the rainbow-colored gift box first.

“Beginner Divine Artifact Lifetime Quest Gift Box: Complete all quests to obtain a beginner-level divine artifact for your class.”

A divine artifact!

Yunshuo nearly bit his own tongue. The level system in “Era of Reforging” was similar to that of “Glacial Glory.” Equipment was ranked: Broken, White, Green, Blue, Purple, Red, and Gold. Gold equipment, also known as Golden or Darkgold, was followed by Pink Immortal gear, and above that, the Rainbow Divine Artifacts.

In other words, unless they added an even higher tier later, divine artifacts—no matter how low-level—were already almost the most powerful equipment in “Era of Reforging!”

It wasn’t quite to the point where wielding a divine artifact let you massacre an entire city, but taking down a hundred or so weaklings? Absolutely possible!

“Damn, everybody gets a divine artifact quest?”

Yunshuo was dumbfounded. Seriously?

With such a massive player base, and so many top-tier players, no matter how tough the quest, someone would finish it. When everyone else was still struggling in blue or purple gear, suddenly a wave of players would be running around with divine artifacts. Wouldn’t that break the game?

Without hesitation, Yunshuo tried to view the first quest, only to be informed it wouldn’t unlock until level 10.

Suppressing his impatience, he set aside the rainbow-colored box and opened the black gift box.

“Stellar Particle Radiation Compensation Pack—Warning: During character creation, you encountered a stellar particle storm in the real world, with a maximum level 5 intensity. This storm may have caused unknown damage to your body and nervous system.”

“The system has automatically generated a compensation pack. Upon opening, you will receive a random hidden class. Warning: This hidden class may be so rare that you will have no mentor or class questline, and must explore it entirely on your own.”

A chill shot up Yunshuo’s spine and raced to his brain.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, his face darkened as he exited the game.

The idyllic mountain village scenery gave way to the vast emptiness of outer space. Still dangling beneath the spaceship by his harness, Yunshuo hurriedly checked himself over for any issues, but found nothing amiss. He breathed a slight sigh of relief.

As long as there was no immediate physical harm, it wasn’t the worst-case scenario.

“I was only in the game for a few minutes and just happened to pass through a particle storm? Seriously—damn it!”

Gritting his teeth, Yunshuo grabbed the hook and launched himself upward. In zero gravity, his body shot up like a rocket, and the spaceship loomed close within seconds.

Climbing inside, he completed the decontamination and pressure checks, stripped off his spacesuit, and rushed to the deserted cockpit to review the logs.

After seeing three consecutive stellar particle storm warnings, Yunshuo could only sigh.

What rotten luck!

He’d barely spent ten minutes before and after logging into the game, and yet had managed to hit a particle storm that only happened once every ten days or so. He hadn’t just been exposed to open space, he had also chosen that moment to dive into virtual reality, lowering his body’s defenses to the minimum. With everyone else in the ship focused on the new game server, there hadn’t even been anyone to warn him. If that wasn’t fate, what was?

After a thorough checkup in the med bay, the diagnostics came back clear—no abnormalities, no illness. Yunshuo was dubious, but also greatly relieved.

If he was fine for now, there was nothing to worry about. As for what might happen in the future, Yunshuo couldn’t be bothered to care.

“Unbelievable. I get hit even when I’m lying down—no, even when I’m hanging from a hook! But what did the system say? A random hidden class as compensation?”

“If I don’t mutate or die in the next few years, this might actually be a win!”

Eager to return, Yunshuo hurried back to his room and donned his Hurricane VR headset.

The Hurricane series was the last-generation standard VR headset issued to all of humanity before the great exodus from their home planet. Over the years, with constant software upgrades from Skynet, its performance had become vastly superior to when Yunshuo first got it as a child.

Though the multi-purpose helmet also supported “Era of Reforging,” it still couldn’t compare to a dedicated VR device in terms of experience and stability.

The scene shifted before his eyes.

Even with the old multi-purpose helmet, the beauty of the mountain village had already been entrancing. Now, with the ultra-immersive Hurricane headset, Yunshuo felt exhilarated—an overwhelming rush of pleasure.

His bones felt soft, as if all his strength had been drained away. He wanted nothing more than to lie in the grass and disregard the world entirely.

“Anyone with a combined Strength and Constitution over 12, join up! Let’s kill those damn chicks!”

“Damn it, how can a mere baby chicken be so cocky? It’s killed me six times—six times! When I level up, I’ll come back and wipe out every chicken in the newbie village!”

“We need two with Constitution 8. Three high-Constitution players already in the party. We’ll take turns tanking hits, share the XP!”

…

The chaotic and desperate cries of the players flooded Yunshuo’s ears, bringing him crashing back to the brutal reality of the game.

“What a tragedy,” he thought, standing on the hillside overlooking the scene below, heart pounding.

The chick area was only about the size of a dozen athletic fields, yet it had thousands upon thousands of players bottled up at one end. They surged in like a tidal wave, but the white flashes of death blossomed everywhere—almost as many died as entered. For every ten players that fell, only one baby chick went down.

What a savage game.

He’d already thought the spider-mech monsters in the opening animation were terrifying, but now, seeing the world’s difficulty level, Yunshuo felt his scalp tingle.

Out of desperation, players were forming parties from level 1.

With teamwork, things improved slightly, but it was still grueling—killing a single chick usually cost several lives, and the pitiful scraps of experience and copper coins dropped left everyone in despair.

“I can’t take this anymore!”

A girl snapped after being slaughtered yet again and ran straight for the mining area. “My wooden shield broke after a few hits, I don’t even have a weapon—I’m going to mine for ore with my bare hands to trade for copper coins!”

Her words were the final straw. Waves of players either retreated from the front or left the respawn point, swarming toward the mining zone.

“Digging for ore with your bare hands? How bleak.”

Yunshuo recalled all those days he’d spent endlessly surveying meteorites by hand—it was enough to make him want to vomit. Over his dead body would he mine rocks in a game, no matter what.

“Random hidden class selection in progress. Countdown: 5, 4, 2, 1!”