Chapter 4

《The Ninth Continent》, strictly speaking, is no longer a traditional game; it has even broken the definition of a game.

The biggest difference between this game and all the games in human history is that almost ninety percent of people today rely on it for their livelihood.

This game covers a wide range of areas, including entertainment, learning, socializing, careers, and more. All the significance of human behavior will be reflected in The Ninth Continent.

The reason is simple: the world of today is highly advanced in technology.

How advanced? For example, traditional farmers no longer need to toil in the fields. As long as you have enough money, you can buy a smart robot to do the work for you, even feed you and give you water, and do anything for you.

Everything has its dual nature. The remarkable development of technology has long exhausted the Earth's resources. Humans have long implemented the extraterrestrial immigration plan and now own five star systems. However, the resources of these five star systems are also gradually depleting. The fleet of spaceships searching for new stars is still on its journey. The last time they found a habitable planet in the Happy System was half a century ago. If no new resource planet is discovered in the next two to three decades, humans may face extinction.

If this side effect directly threatens survival, then the other side effect is even more dangerous. With today's technology, humans are in a state of idleness. For example, a young person's daily activities are basically just eating, sleeping, and playing. There's no need to do anything else by hand; as long as you have money, smart robots will do everything for you. In simple terms, this is the standard of living a life of idleness and waiting for death.

As a result, the most obvious change in humans is laziness. After all, the progress of technology is to make humans lazier. According to Darwin's theory, humans are evolving over a long period of cosmic time, evolving into creatures like pigs, losing thought and agility, without striving and researching, and ultimately becoming a weak race in the universe that can be easily preyed upon. This is undoubtedly very frightening.

Against this backdrop, The Ninth Continent was born. Its emergence solved these two side effects, allowing everyone to enter a virtual world, stand on a fair starting point, strive and challenge limits, and rediscover the meaning of human survival. Moreover, this can also reduce the consumption of resources in the real world, buying more time for the search of the interstellar fleet.

The most critical point is that the money in The Ninth Continent is specially allowed by the federal government to be exchanged with real-world credit points. In simple terms, if you want to live better in the real world, you must strive and work hard in The Ninth Continent. For most people, almost all their economic sources depend on their achievements in The Ninth Continent.

Even prisoners are no exception, although they have been deprived of many human rights and only have three hours a day. This is indeed a welfare of the prison—you must work even if you are in prison.

Li Dalong, this oddball, was entering The Ninth Continent for the first time. After a series of routine retinal scans, a vast and beautiful space scene appeared before him, which was clearly the login interface.

The interface displayed the birth zones of The Ninth Continent: Obsidian Land, Justice League, Warrior Continent, Twisted Jungle, Hall of Genius, and Exile Land.

Unfortunately, the system提示 indicated that the first five options were all blocked, leaving only Exile Land as the choice.

Although this was Li Dalong's first time entering, who nowadays doesn't know about The Ninth Continent? He had heard a lot about it.

"Why is this?" Li Dalong was puzzled.

The system's response left him speechless: "Hello, player. Due to your current use of the Black Spider jurisdiction access point, the main brain system will deprive you of some game rights. Now entering the physical evaluation stage."

In The Ninth Continent, the character's initial attributes are based on the player's own physical condition, which determines the suitable career path. As for later achievements, it all depends on your own efforts.

The Ninth Continent does not have specific careers; it has a high degree of freedom. What kind of character you want to create depends entirely on your experiences and opportunities in the game.

However, despite this, through the exploration of countless veteran players, careers are generally related to the birthplace. Obsidian Land focuses on magic, scrolls, and runes; Justice League emphasizes gladiatorial combat, skills, and power; Warrior Continent is full of assassination, stealth, and peculiar techniques; Twisted Jungle is filled with taming, breeding, and summoning; and Hall of Genius is particularly skilled in research, technology, and wisdom.

As for Exile Land, there is no significant advantage or direction. It is a barren land where only the most miserable people are born, and criminals are born here for sure.

"Exile Land it is!" Li Dalong sighed helplessly. He soon saw his level 1 attributes.

Health: 13 points;

Strength: 20 points;

Constitution: 22 points;

Spirit: 9 points;

Movement Speed: 18 points;

There are only five initial attributes, but as the player trains and grows, new attributes will be developed, depending on your luck and opportunities.

After another routine flash of white light, Li Dalong finally set foot on the land of The Ninth Continent. Unfortunately, the scene before him was a vast desert. Apart from the scorching sun overhead, there was nothing around—no people, no animals, not even a bit of green grass, just a dead gray expanse of sand and stone.

This can be considered one of the harshest birth environments in history. After all, you are a criminal deprived of human rights, and you start in hell mode.

It took Li Dalong more than ten minutes to understand the control interface and some basic information.

First, he had a permanent inventory space where all the items he obtained would be stored. The size of the space depends on his strength and constitution, and the current capacity is 21 slots.

Second, his equipment is as follows:

A set of new cloth armor (including clothes and pants), +15 defense;

A pair of new straw shoes, +5% movement speed;

A wooden stick, +5 attack;

For a level 1 new player, this equipment is quite good. After all, 15 points of defense is decent, and the cloth armor can withstand a few hits from the mutated lizards in the sand.

The main brain system has various measures to protect new players. For example, Li Dalong's inventory now contains a small map showing how to get to Rough Village.

Rough Village is indeed rough, with a few dilapidated tile houses lying on a barren land. The houses are so shabby that they might fall down with a gust of wind. In the center, a large open space serves as the trading square.

There are many stalls on the square, and there are quite a few people. Since Li Dalong was new, he was very curious about the various players in strange costumes, constantly looking around.

After a while, Baldy finally arrived.

In the game, Baldy's appearance was clearly beautified. His originally fierce and evil face had transformed into a handsome and graceful one, giving him the air of a noble gentleman. He wore a set of藤甲 (藤甲,藤甲), a long sword at his waist, and shiny calf-length leather boots.

But why did Li Dalong recognize Baldy at first glance? The reason is simple: Baldy's head had six large words, "I have dementia," which is a small feature of the control panel. Players can choose to expose their names, but generally, everyone chooses to hide them. Who would want to reveal their identity and draw attention?

Baldy did not come alone; he was followed by another person wearing藤甲 (藤甲,藤甲) but carrying a hard-lined brown birch longbow on his shoulder. His name was quite unique—“Contra”!

Upon seeing Li Dalong, the two quickly hid their names. Contra spoke up, "Bro, is this your friend?"

Hearing this, Li Dalong felt warm inside. Clearly, Baldy had mentioned to Contra that his friend Li Dalong would be coming.

Despite the warmth, Li Dalong felt very curious. Although he had never been in prison, he knew many stories about it, such as the prison bosses and bullies. However, Baldy seemed to have no ill will toward him and was even somewhat friendly.

These days, everyone knows that going solo in the game is very dangerous. New players need friends to guide them; it's really hard to make a name for yourself alone. As for those who can single-handedly dominate the world, well, you need to wake up first.

"Let me see your initial attributes," Baldy said.

This small feature in The Ninth Continent allows players to choose whether to display or hide data related to teaming up, trading, and dungeons.

"How are my attributes?" Li Dalong was eager to find out if he had the legendary GM (God Mother) attributes, which would allow him to be arrogant and adventurous. Although he knew the possibility was slim.

Baldy glanced at him and nodded, "Your body is not bad."

Li Dalong was a bit disappointed. From Baldy's expressionless face, he could tell this was a comforting remark.

Actually, he was wrong, very wrong. Baldy's calm exterior hid his immense surprise, even shock. Li Dalong's initial attributes were not just "not bad"; they were "very good," even "outstanding." At the very least, he had never seen anyone with such powerful initial attributes.

(This new book has been published under great pressure. If you like it, please add it to your collection and vote. During the new book period, your support is needed. Many readers enjoy online games, but there are very few authors who dare to write them!)

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