Earth's Best Gamer - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Ren Hamlet. Ninth Uncle?
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

“Brother Ji, you came offline too?”
Good timing. The office wants to have a meeting with us, let’s head there together.”
When Ji Ye went offline and returned to Earth, Fatty Zhu had actually gone offline before him.
A man from the Confederation Office was waiting right outside his door.
“Meeting?”
…
“I’m sorry for making everyone sacrifice their precious time to come here for a meeting.”
“All of you are talented people who completed the initial trial. You should have received the new settlement mission, right?”
“The reason why we convened everyone here is because we want you to tell us the difficulties you face. We will gather experts to brainstorm to help you quickly complete this mission!”
Sitting at the main seat of the large oval conference table was a forty-year-old leader of the Confederation Office.
To his sides were several more personnel, including Captain Ling Chen from Operation Task Force One and two intelligence analysts.
Sitting at the meeting table, the “beta players” consisted of five men and three women.
They weren’t everyone who had completed the trial. There were still two people who were still in the Land of Inheritance. They didn’t log off immediately, so they weren’t present.
However, to only have ten people complete the trial in all of Yang City was a rather low ratio.
Although talent outflow was indeed a serious problem, there were more than two hundred people in Yang City who had become “beta players”!
“…”
After hearing the middle-aged man’s words, none of the eight people spoke immediately. Some of them even looked hesitant.
“Director Zhou, is it because someone has finished the settlement mission already?”
The first person to speak was a handsome, confident young man sitting opposite Ji Ye.
“That’s Mu Rong, the son of the biggest real estate owner in Yang City… I attended a banquet with him once. I didn’t expect him to be chosen as well!”
Fatty Zhu sat beside Ji Ye and whispered with a surprised expression. 4
As often was the case, a tall, rich, handsome kid in a typical novel would always become the antagonist.
Ji Ye raised his eyes to look at the name which was easy for people to misunderstand it as a surname, but he was actually a sunny youth with a single first name. He did not feel any ‘discrimination’ towards others because of his identity as a rich scion!
For one, Ji Ye himself shared similar traits.
And besides, being rich alone would not grant anyone a seat in this place. Mu Rong surely possessed brilliant capabilities in his line of work. He didn’t take the back door just because he was rich and handsome. 1
Of course, it could not be ruled out that the Land of Inheritance really regarded a scion as one of the selection criteria. However, those who could be selected would have to be the children of the top 100 richest people in the world.
“According to the Confederation, a foreign player has completed the settlement mission!”
Director Zhou’s expression and tone didn’t appear too happy when mentioning this. He had obviously turned solemn.
“Eh…”
“Someone has already completed it?”
“That was quick!”
A commotion broke out among the beta players.
Ji Ye didn’t feel too bothered by the message, for he knew that the Commander-level Black Serpent was extraordinary.
However, if he had chosen to sneak and attack while the Golden Condor was fighting the Black Serpent, it was not entirely impossible for him to kill it.
The serpent’s scales weren’t actually invulnerable anyway. A bolt in the heart or other vital points could definitely claim its life.
By the same logic, if other people were bolder, and if they were lucky, they would be able to quickly complete the settlement mission!
Of course, bold moves were more likely to result in failure.
Those who passed their initial trial were probably the cautious type who preferred thorough preparations prior to taking action.
“Completing the mission is not the most important point yet.
More importantly, after that person completed his mission and successfully arrived at the human settlement, he discovered that it was actually a village in the era of the republic!”
The middle-aged man’s eyes were sweeping the eight “beta players” as though he was looking forward to something.
“A village in the republic era…”
Upon hearing this, the eight players who had passed the trial were stunned.
This was undoubtedly an extremely surprising development!
What kind of situation would it be for the “settlement” in the Land of Inheritance to be like?
Over the past few days, there were naturally all sorts of speculations on the forum,
such as being a fantastical city, a magical town, a cultivation sect, or a high-tech city. Nobody would be surprised if any of these showed up.
It could be said that it would not be too surprising if it appeared.
But a common village from the republic era? What was going on? 4
“Maybe this Land of Inheritance isn’t only dimensionally all-inclusive, but also temporally? Like, we can time-travel to different ages?”
a female player said with a shocked look.
“No way. We know that timeline theory stuff is flawed and baseless,” 4
Mu Rong—the son of real estate—disagreed, his eyes shimmering.
“Yes, it’s called the Land of Inheritance. Perhaps the settlement copied something from civilizations from old times and expects players to ‘inherit’ the history?”
Following that, he seemed to recall something as he stared at the middle-aged leader and asked. 1
Those words got the other beta players thinking.
“That was also what we believed at first!
“However, when the Confederate government received more information from the person who succeeded and those who came offline earlier than you did, even the experts were a little dumbfounded…”
The relatively low-ranking Ling Chen acted as a temporary secretary and began distributing some files to the participants with a bitter smile.
[Settlement background: A village from the republic era with a few dozen families, called the Ren Hamlet, which holds many ghost stories. In the village, there is an accomplished Daoist, Ninth Uncle, and his two disciples who equally wield special powers…] 2
“Holy sh*t. Ren Hamlet? Ninth Uncle?”
They read the information revealed by the player who completed the settlement mission quickly.
In the meeting room, all the beta players’ eyes widened!
“Yes, regarding this situation, the higher-ups have asked many experts from different fields to discuss it.”
“Lastly, an expert working as a part-time web novelist proposed a viewpoint. 1
“The background of the land of inheritance is most likely based on the literature, movies, history, myths, and other elements of the various civilizations. The essence of this world is probably a special half-dimension that exists between fantasy and reality. Therefore, it is possible to have a rule system similar to a game…”
The middle-aged Director Zhou read the script in his hand.
To understand the meaning of these words at his age was actually rather difficult.
However, for the beta players who were aged from 15 to 35, they understood everything.
“But, a web novelist…”
The Confederation Office had done their best. Even the opinions of a web novelist were taken into consideration.
It had to be known that people who wrote web novels just wrote whatever that came to mind. The things they wrote were filled with loopholes and logical errors! 5
However, if this view could be recognized by the Confederation, it had to be reliable.
“That expert even proposed an experiment and asked us to promote his web novel to the world!” 1
“He believes that the characters in his work might be able to ‘bring the non-existent into reality,’ making it appear in the Land of Inheritance and becoming a help for Earthlings…” 2
Ling Chen, who had finished distributing the information, returned to his seat and spoke with a strange expression.
The beta players were stunned when they heard that.
These people who wrote web novels really had wild imaginations.
He wanted to make use of the country’s power to promote his works!
But speaking of which, among the selected ones, there must have been a web novelist.
What would the contents of their trial be?
Being surrounded by a bunch of ferocious monster readers? If he was unable to release a chapter or write a plot during the designated time to the monsters’ satisfaction, would he be torn apart by the angry reader monsters? 8
Damn, that’s terrifying!