Chapter 32: Skyvault Technology Research Center | Monsters Are Coming
Primordial Altar.
Upon receiving the Guide's feedback, Qi Sheng immediately switched his perspective to the area where the explosion had occurred.
The blast was not very powerful; it merely shattered three bluestone tiles on the ground and required only 0.05 Sacrificial Power to repair.
However, he was deeply curious about the cause of the explosion.
With this question in mind, he had the Guide replay the scene witnessed by the avatar.
When he saw the player Qin Ye studying a level 1 energy stone, Qi Sheng's curiosity grew, and he zoomed in on the interior of the stone.
"He's rearranging the internal structure of the energy stone?"
[Boss, after simulating the structure he's arranging, I believe he may be trying to create a Psionic Bomb.]
"What do you mean?"
[To put it simply, by altering the internal arrangement of the energy particles within the stone, he's creating a new structure that would instantly collapse and release energy when triggered by consciousness. But this is only my deduction, I can't say for sure.]
The Guide's response sparked Qi Sheng's strong interest in this player.
When the Challenger System was first established, what he valued most was not the players' fearless risk-taking under infinite resurrection, but rather their imaginative creativity.
Like players who turned war games into farming simulations, or exploited bugs and loopholes to create unexpected playstyles that even the developers never foresaw.
Before his transmigration, he himself had been a passionate gamer, having seen many players display such creativity in games.
To verify his hypothesis, he accessed the memory archive data of the player's replicated body in Monster World.
The conclusion aligned with the Guide's, this player was trying to apply real-world Psionic Bomb technology into the game.
This discovery made Qi Sheng even more hopeful for the player's future development.
—
Stepping out of the game pod, Qin Ye realized that Dark Land had far more terrifying potential than he had imagined.
Perfectly simulating reality meant that many extremely dangerous experiments could be safely conducted in the game world, and the resulting data could directly drive technological advances in the real world.
Sitting down at his desk, he composed an email reporting his findings to the Skyvault Technology Research Center.
The Skyvault Technology Research Center was a special institution established by the Human Federation for researching alien technology. Qin Ye was one of its members, assigned to the Subterranean Trading Market as an administrator.
While waiting for the resurrection cooldown to finish, Qin Ye began reviewing recent applications from alien races seeking entry to the trading market.
Half an hour later, a new email notification appeared in the lower right corner of his screen.
Opening it, Qin Ye saw that it was from Skyvault Headquarters.
[Sender: Skyvault Technology Research Center]
Content:
To the D-level administrator at the Subterranean Trading Market, we have received your proposal regarding conducting dangerous weapons testing within a virtual environment. After consulting my superiors, I provide the following response.
Skyvault Center had already begun preparations to enter Dark Land for dangerous weapons testing after its release.
As Dark Land uses the Starnet real-name purchase system developed by the Lunar Eclipse Race, we have no special privileges to bypass the purchase and directly enter the game. Unfortunately, no one at headquarters has been able to obtain a game slot thus far.
Skyvault Center has submitted a request to the Human Federation Parliament to negotiate with the Lunar Eclipse Race for a batch of game slots exempt from the lottery (the Parliament has not yet responded).]
—
After reading the email, Qin Ye was speechless.
He hadn't expected that even Skyvault Headquarters, with its top-level authority in the Human Federation, couldn't secure a game slot.
It showed just how insane the Lunar Eclipse Race's hunger marketing was for this game.
In this new era where virtual game pods had become household devices, the Human Federation's population was 2 billion, yet each round of game slots distributed by the Lunar Eclipse Race to humans only contained 1 million, a mere drop in the bucket.
At this moment, he recalled the Welfare Officer who had provided him with the pirated link, and a bold idea emerged in his mind.
"Maybe I can send the pirated download link to Skyvault Center and let them access the game that way."
Without hesitation, he immediately forwarded the link via email to Skyvault Headquarters.
—
Four hours later.
Three deafening explosions erupted on the Ancient Battlefield outside Emperor's Mound Village, sending flesh flying.
[Challenger Notification: You have killed Evil Entity: Blood Corpse. Gained +125 Evolution Points. Gained +24 Sacrificial Power. Owl-Headed Fiend form level +1.]
[Challenger Notification: You have killed Evil Entity: Blood Corpse…]
As the notifications rang continuously in his mind, Qin Ye couldn't help but burst into laughter.
He hadn't expected that a random idea would actually succeed in the game.
With just three level 1 energy stones crafted into Psionic Bombs, he was able to kill blood corpses of level 10 and higher.
Even more importantly, Psionic Bombs dealt area-of-effect damage. The three bombs together killed eight blood corpses, boosting his Owl-Headed Fiend level to 10.
If he were to use level 2 or even higher-grade energy stones, one could only imagine how powerful the explosions would be.
Although crafting Psionic Bombs required resources, buying energy stones from the shop, the profits generated far outweighed the costs.
This discovery gave Qin Ye a wild new idea.
Perhaps he could build an entire Star Vein build centered around Psionic Bombs.
With this idea, Qin Ye immediately returned to Emperor's Mound Village and entered the test tower.
Over the next few hours, Qin Ye experimented with different Soul Imprint combinations for Psionic Bomb usage.
His first choice was not the Owl-Headed Fiend but rather the Sea Stone Soul Imprint.
The Sea Stone's Primordial Ability allowed for rapid and continuous mental recovery even under normal conditions.
Since crafting Psionic Bombs required powerful mental support, the three level 1 Psionic Bombs he had just made had completely drained his mental power, making it impossible to continue crafting for a while.
But by embedding the Sea Stone Soul Imprint, his mental recovery would be significantly boosted.
For his other Soul Imprints, he chose those that either enhanced mental strength or assisted in mental recovery, aiming for sustained bombardment.
After some initial tests with the Star Vein combination, Qin Ye discovered a major issue.
The game lacked any friendly-fire immunity mechanics, so the highly destructive Psionic Bombs easily endangered himself.
To resolve this, he considered two possible solutions.
Find Soul Imprints that could resist the shockwaves of the bombs to boost his defenses. Or find a Soul Imprint that allowed for long-range throws, enabling him to hurl the Psionic Bombs beyond the blast radius.
After careful thought, Qin Ye concluded that the second option was more practical.
There were many defensive Soul Imprints to choose from, but achieving extreme defense would require embedding multiple defensive Soul Imprints, much like the currently popular Immovable Immortal Build on the forum, which used the Gargoyle as its core combined with a series of healing and defense-boosting Soul Imprints.
However, Star Vein slots were limited in the early game. Amplifying explosive power was the key. Embedding multiple defensive Soul Imprints didn't fit his vision for the Psionic Bomb build's growth path.