Chapter Ninety-One: The Virtual Civilization Thrives and Flourishes

Three days ago, Blue Sky descended in the Burning Heart Divine Armor and fought a great battle with Flame Marsh. The people of the world were swept up in immense joy, all of them eagerly awaiting the uplifting news this sudden "Iron God" would surely bring.

And yet three days passed without the slightest movement. Satellite footage captured nothing. No one knew what the final outcome had been.

A shadow fell once more over everyone’s hearts...

Until, all at once, the official website of Virtual Network Company pinned a news item to the top of its homepage, complete with a photograph, and the entire world erupted.

For in that picture, the colossal corpse as huge as a mountain was none other than the horrifying monster that had filled the world with dread!

He had won!

"Iron God" had truly won!

The world was in uproar, stunned beyond belief!

Happiness had come far too suddenly. One moment, everyone was still trembling with fear, afraid that Iron God had failed and the end of the world would return; the next, Virtual Network Company had announced to all the world that the terrifying monster had been slain.

What was more, the news also stated that anyone who wished to watch the battle video of Iron God versus the terrifying monster could purchase a virtual network access headset. Virtual Network Company possessed the full combat recording.

At that moment, the whole planet went mad. Orders for the virtual network access headsets, which had already slowed because of the monster’s rampage, surged once again!

Fortunately, during Flame Marsh’s devastation, and under Blue Sky’s instructions, Virtual Network Company had not shipped products, but it had also never stopped production. A huge number of virtual network access headsets had piled up in the warehouses. This sudden flood of orders caused no delay whatsoever. Together with the backlog of previously suspended shipments, everything was dispatched to the public at once, and the virtual network truly entered every home.

The age of virtual civilization had officially entered a period of rapid growth.

...

"So you’re just leaving Flame Marsh’s corpse here? It really won’t decay?" Blue Sky dragged Flame Marsh’s body into a newly dug hidden cave and looked at White with deep suspicion.

"Of course. This is the corpse of a cosmic behemoth. Without outside interference, it can remain intact for tens of thousands of years without decaying. Besides, with a corpse this enormous, do you really intend to haul it all the way back to Ning City?" White said coolly.

"I’ve already marked this cave. We’ll leave it here for now. Later, once we’re in space and have bought a spatial storage device, we can come back and put the body inside it."

"All right, then we’ll leave it here for the moment. But you must mark it clearly. Don’t let us come back later and fail to find it." Although he knew that with White’s abilities there was virtually no chance of anything going wrong, Blue Sky was still somewhat uneasy, and he confirmed it again and again.

After all, Flame Marsh’s corpse was worth a fortune beyond imagining. Not the slightest mishap could be allowed!

"Just look at you. This is the downside of having your strength increase too quickly. Have you forgotten that you can now use your psychic power for large-scale scanning?" White said, exasperated. "When we get back, go grind in the virtual game and strengthen your fundamentals properly."

"All right, all right. If you hadn’t said anything, I really would have forgotten for a moment," Blue Sky said awkwardly.

Outside, everyone who had received a virtual network access headset entered the virtual network at the first opportunity. While marveling at the charm of the virtual world, they eagerly opened the battle video of Iron God’s clash with the terrifying monster.

The godlike methods of Iron God, the astonishingly advanced technology of the steel outer armor transforming into flight mode, and the inspired strike that destroyed the monster’s head in a single blow left everyone utterly captivated, unable to tear themselves away. After watching once, almost everyone immediately watched a second time, then a third, a fourth...

Afterward, everyone began speculating about Iron God’s identity.

Some said Iron God must be some nation’s most advanced high-tech weapon. Others said Iron God had to be from outer space and could not possibly have been produced by Earth’s technology. Some even speculated that Earth had already been invaded by aliens long ago, and that they had merely hidden themselves too well for anyone to notice. This monster attack, they said, had finally forced the aliens to reveal themselves.

A small number of people came close to the truth, guessing that Virtual Network Company must have an extraordinary relationship with Iron God, perhaps even that Iron God itself was the product of Virtual Network Company. Otherwise, how could the company possibly have obtained such detailed footage, footage so vivid that it made everyone feel as though they were there themselves?

Of course, no matter how people speculated, the supposed protagonist, Iron God, never said another word, and after that battle it vanished without a trace. As time passed, everyone’s attention gradually shifted to the wildly popular virtual network.

Because the number of shipped virtual network access headsets had been so enormous, major regions such as Asia and Europe, along with nearly all developed and developing countries, had basically reached the level where everyone owned one.

Everyone’s lives were utterly transformed.

Thanks to the virtual network’s special sleep effect, people were full of vigor during the day, no longer the listless husks they had once been. Every person was energetic and full of drive.

When night fell, instead of staying up late, drinking, going to bars, or even gaming until dawn, people invited friends in groups of three or five to play Hero Glory together, battling through the night and savoring the strange allure of superhuman power.

Or else they would simply gather in tens, dozens, even hundreds or thousands in the same room, set countless magnificent scenes, and throw enormous parties: luxury cars, beautiful women, yachts, fine wine, karaoke, dancing, all of it available!

Somewhat timid people who nonetheless loved horror films would post their room numbers online and invite everyone to come watch all kinds of horror movies that had been transformed into holographic projection. Screams echoed everywhere.

There was no end to such things.

Of course, aside from the basic room scenery, everything else cost money. One could not have the personal assistant create anything whatsoever on demand. Virtual Network Company had specially developed a public shopping district, roughly the size of a medium-sized city in China, where nearly every object that existed in reality could be found.

Naturally, since it was called a shopping district, nothing there was free. Anything one wanted had to be purchased at the corresponding price before it could become a personal possession. But the prices were not high. In Blue Sky’s style, everything cost only one percent of its real-world price.

For this reason, all virtual network users were shocked beyond measure and overjoyed beyond words. They eagerly spent money buying the luxury goods that had once seemed forever beyond their reach. In their eyes, Blue Sky was simply the loveliest person in the world!

But to look at it another way, almost every real-world product had been infringed upon by Blue Sky, and countless protests soon followed, while court summons from every country came drifting in like snow.

"Blue Sky, nearly every court in the world has issued a summons to our company. Wang Ling’s legal department is practically buried under them already, and you really are fearless... Are we seriously just going to ignore all of them?" In Ning City, in the chairman’s office at Virtual Network Company headquarters, Chen Xiaoxuan, the company’s public spokesperson, was looking at Blue Sky with obvious displeasure as she complained, somewhat exasperated.

Recently she had been driven nearly mad. She had truly come to understand why people called journalists the uncrowned kings...

They were everywhere. No matter where she went now, she would be surrounded by a swarm of reporters, with not a shred of private space left to her.

"Haha, you’ve worked hard, you’ve really worked hard. Tonight call Wang Ling and let’s all go out for a big meal. As for summons and whatnot, we’ll ignore every single one of them," Blue Sky said with a roguish grin, looking utterly unconcerned.