Chapter 3

Taking off his helmet, Liu Weian lay on the bed without moving. However, he soon felt something was wrong. The usual weakness he felt was gone, and he still felt energetic. Recalling the two white crystals he had consumed today, he immediately understood what had happened.

Opening his eyes, the room was dim. He had logged out at least an hour and a half later than usual today. Pressing the switch, the fluorescent light emitted a dazzling glow, illuminating the room as bright as daylight. Two figures, one large and one small, appeared before him. Liu Weian was not surprised; he just asked, "Why didn't you turn on the lights when it got dark?"

The two women were both thin, the kind of thin that comes from long-term malnutrition, as if a gust of wind could knock them over. Their faces, lacking flesh, made their eyes seem abnormally large. Both women had many red spots on their faces and exposed skin, some of which had become swollen and pus-filled, looking quite terrifying. However, Liu Weian treated this as a normal occurrence.

They were a mother and daughter who had wandered and, by chance, saved Liu Weian's life. After the crisis passed, Liu Weian took them in. Originally, he could barely support himself and had no right to take in others, but if he hadn't, they would have been killed as virus carriers.

However, Liu Weian knew that their symptoms, which resembled smallpox, were not contagious.

The mother, Zhao Nan, and the little girl, who took her mother's surname, was named Zhao Xin, which likely meant she was to grow up happily and flourish. However, reality had clearly tarnished this beautiful wish.

"Mom said we need to save electricity," Zhao Xin said in a clear voice. Her face showed both surprise at Liu Weian's awakening and a hint of self-consciousness due to the spots on her face. Zhao Nan had a beautiful face with smooth lines and delicate features. If not for the red spots, she would have been a top beauty. Her eyes were melancholic, and she was stroking Zhao Xin's hair, lost in thought.

Liu Weian sighed and got out of bed.

The room was only ten square meters. After placing the bed, there was little space left. There were no windows, and the large iron door had long rusted due to dampness. Fortunately, the fluorescent light was quite bright. At the head of the bed was an old bedside table. Opening the drawer, he found only two energy bars inside. Liu Weian immediately understood the reason for Zhao Nan's melancholic expression.

Energy bars were the basic energy source for sustaining life. Extracted from food, they were colorless and tasteless, only ensuring that one did not starve to death. They were the means by which most of the poor and slaves sustained their lives.

According to the standard, one energy bar could sustain a person for one day. However, for most of the poor and slaves, being able to consume one energy bar every three days was already a happy event. Many slaves even consumed one every five days, leading to the necessity of long periods of sleep to minimize energy consumption. This, in turn, prevented them from working and earning money, leading to a vicious cycle of increasing poverty.

Zhao Nan and Zhao Xin had not consumed an energy bar for three days. Zhao Nan could endure, but Zhao Xin could not, as she was still growing. However, Zhao Nan did not dare to let her consume one because Liu Weian needed the energy bars the most. Liu Weian had to enter the Beast World to earn money, and without the strength, he would surely die. Liu Weian was the sole source of income for the three of them.

Liu Weian's gaze swept over the mother and daughter. His eyes showed gratitude, pity, and more disgust at the world's injustice. However, these emotions quickly passed, and he said, "I'm going out for a bit."

The mother and daughter were startled. Fear appeared on Zhao Xin's face, and Zhao Nan hesitated before softly saying, "Be careful."

Liu Weian nodded and left the room.

It was around six in the evening, but it was already as dark as midnight. The wind howled, and the temperature was bitterly cold. Liu Weian tightened his thin, tattered clothes, his eyes determined, and walked out with large strides.

This was no longer Earth but Mars, Mars in the year 3017. Although he had been here for three months, he still could not adapt to the climate and environment.

Three months ago, he was still on Earth. Although he was in an orphanage, he at least had food to eat, books to read, and friends around. However, fate played a cruel joke on him.

On a dark night, the always kind-hearted director called him out and had him taken away in a car. He was accused of murder and sentenced to exile on Saturn, never to return. At first, he was confused, but when he boarded the spaceship to Saturn, he suddenly realized he had been framed.

Unfortunately, the realization came too late. However, fate seemed to hear his prayers. When the spaceship was near Mars, it encountered space pirates, and a rare hijacking occurred. After a fierce battle, the spaceship crashed into the slave district on Mars. Liu Weian escaped in the chaos and took a game helmet with him. During his escape, he met the mother and daughter who scavenged for a living. At that time, they were dirty, covered in sores, and emitted a foul odor. Liu Weian hid under Zhao Nan's skirt and escaped the most dangerous search. They then traveled by night and rested by day, eventually reaching the border between the slave district and the poor district. Using the money he had taken, he rented a basement and settled down.

A month ago, while out shopping for supplies, he saw the mother and daughter. He didn't know why they had ended up homeless, but the poor district, though not much better than the slave district, was strictly managed. People like Zhao Nan and Zhao Xin, who appeared to have infectious diseases, would be forcibly detained, and any resistance could result in immediate death. Grateful for their life-saving kindness, Liu Weian secretly brought them back to his place.

A month had passed, and the consumption of three people was more than double that of one. Despite their best efforts to save, they were now at the end of their resources.

The Beast World was not easy to survive in either.

The Beast World was a real world, but it existed in a different dimension, definitely not in the solar system.

In 2717, after a period of extreme prosperity, humanity inevitably entered a period of decline. Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were overpopulated, and various conflicts erupted. The wealth gap, class conflicts, political struggles, national disputes, underground forces, and terrorists... These grievances boiled like water in a pressure cooker, and finally, the pressure cooker exploded.

The war first broke out on Saturn, quickly spreading to Jupiter, then Mars, and finally Earth, the birthplace of humanity. The war lasted a year, almost destroying the planets, and countless people died. The population was reduced by a third. As if that wasn't enough, aliens attacked during the most intense fighting.

Human technology had long surpassed the solar system, and after centuries of searching, they had found no aliens. However, the aliens appeared at the most unexpected time.

The nature of the war changed from a civil war to a war of resistance. After ten years of fierce fighting, they successfully repelled the aliens, but Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were left in ruins, filled with radiation, and the population was reduced to less than one-thousandth of its peak.

Civilization was almost pushed back to the Stone Age, and this war was known as the End War.

After three centuries of development, technology returned to the level of 2717, but the planets ravaged by the war could not recover to their original state. After hundreds of years, radiation was still severe, and large areas had become no-go zones. Species had mutated, and monsters roamed, but these were minor issues. The major problem was that after thousands of years of reckless exploitation, the resources of the solar system's planets were almost depleted. Despite sweeping through the nine planets of the solar system, they found little resources, and they were almost ready to head to the sun.

Resource scarcity was the most pressing issue facing humanity.

Just as the rulers of the three empires decided to implement the "Weeding" plan, an unexpected event occurred. The "Weeding" plan aimed to eliminate the "weeds" among humans, as they were useless and absorbed nutrients. The "weeds" were the slaves, the poor, and the criminals.

After the End War, the former nations of the solar system had disappeared, replaced by three new empires: the Great Han Dynasty, the Maya Empire, and the Atlantis Federation. Due to historical reasons, humans were reclassified into four levels: nobles, citizens, commoners, and slaves.

Slaves had virtually no rights and were destined to be exploited.

The event that put the "Weeding" plan on hold was the Beast World. The "Black Hole" project, a joint research effort by the three empires, exploded during testing. Normally, an explosion would indicate failure, but this time, it was different. The "Black Hole" project failed, but it produced a side effect: the Beast World.

The "Black Hole" project failed, but it connected to an unknown world dominated by beasts. More importantly, this world was rich in resources, three times as much as the solar system before it was exploited. Without a doubt, the resources of the Beast World could sustain humanity for at least three hundred years.

Thus, a game called "Plunder" was born.

As mentioned earlier, the "Black Hole" project was essentially a failure, so "Plunder" had many flaws. For example, the human body could not enter the Beast World, nor could any items be carried in. Only through a game helmet, using brain waves, could one enter the Beast World, and through mental imaging, a real person would be generated.

The generated person in the Beast World was identical to the real-world body, with no difference in physical condition or intelligence. The only difference was that the generated person could be resurrected after death, but with limitations. The resurrection time was long, typically a month for a normal person.

The biggest feature of the "Plunder" game was that it could transport items from the Beast World to the human world through the cosmic black hole, but only non-living items. Although this was not ideal, it was a significant boon for humanity, as meat, plants, and minerals from the Beast World could be continuously transported to the human world, alleviating the crisis of resource depletion.

Liu Weian's thoughts wandered, but his pace quickened. After about ten minutes, he arrived at a commercial area, where the atmosphere was lively.