VCRMM: Chapter 257

Once Heidi reported the situation, it didn’t take long for the NPC army of the Roland Empire to rush over.

It was a headache, but Xu Sili still sent troops to expel the players from the territory of the sea elves. He set the back mountain of the Elementalist Academy as a restricted area.

No outsiders were allowed to enter without permission.

It wasn’t that difficult to manage players. As long as the punishment was set higher, such as one month in jail if caught, then most players would consciously abide by the rules.

For the remaining handful of players, they probably wouldn’t be so easily dissuaded and he could only strengthen the supervision.

The moment this regulation came out, there was a barrage of criticism on the forum.

[Stupid planners! Since it is a restricted area, why don’t you set a reminder to pop up? Isn’t this provoking a crime in a sting operation?]

[The planners are making trouble. Isn’t it too ruthless to set it as one month? The game is moving so fast right now. Things will be completely different after a month.]

[Wu wu wu, I’m in prison. Who can get me out…?]

The planners thought, ‘What does this have to do with us? We are all lying down, okay?’

The army left after driving the players away and didn’t stay behind, and Xu Sili only asked Xiao Wu to help supervise. But it already had an unexpected effect.

After all, no player could do without their communicator anymore.

No matter whether it was a player who liked to join a group or an individual who liked to act alone, they needed to accept tasks through the mercenary platform as long as they became a mercenary.

The communicator allowed them to stay in touch with NPCs and was also a very practical item.

More importantly, there were electronic maps.

For players who were used to using automatic routing and satellite navigation systems, relying on maps to find their way was a difficult task for them.

They would be completely blind without a map.

It might be a bit inconvenient without satellites at present, but Xiao Wu had super high computing power and could provide some help and guidance to players by relying on the monitoring network densely covering major cities.

As for in the wilderness, they could only hope for the best.

Now, as long as a player entered the restricted area of the Elementalist Academy’s back mountain, the player’s communicator would be automatically locked.

Without them knowing it, the city guards received information about these people and went to arrest them. They were almost always successful.

It was because the players would be considered a wanted criminal even if they escaped. Not only would they be unable to move around the main cities, but they would also run the risk of being reported by their companions.

Therefore, after arresting over a dozen people, no player dared to rashly enter the back mountain of the Elementalist Academy.

The mountain finally returned to peace and tranquility. Chief Heidi sighed with relief and expressed her deep gratitude to Xu Sili.

She also realized once again that even though they had surrendered to the Roland Empire in order to survive, they were still respected and protected.

Roland didn’t despise them because they were another race. The barriers and resistance in the hearts of the sea elves basically dissipated after this incident.

Once the players stopped bothering them, the sea elves finally dared to swim out of the lake again.

They gathered together to discuss something. Then they sent representatives to the Elementalist Academy. Thanks to the recommendation of Elder Witchell, they served as the academy’s sound instructors.

Due to Xu Sili’s success, the Elementalist Academy had started to pay attention to students in the sound department again.

However, there was no reason to let the emperor personally serve as an instructor. What’s more, Xu Sili’s mind relied too much on inspiration and had no universality. This meant the inheritance of the sound system was still difficult.

Many players were influenced by Xu Sili and chose to practice the sound system, but it wasn’t until they changed classes that they discovered this annoying problem.

There was no problem with upgrading the level but…

They couldn’t learn any skills!

What was the point of having a high level without skills? Others could fly over rooftops and walk on walls, but they were no different from ordinary people.

Apart from a few players who also studied music in real life, there were currently few people who had mastered sound skills on their own.

However, skills couldn’t be transferred between players.

They needed to find an NPC mentor. Currently in the game, only His Majesty Snow was a sound elementalist.

Finding His Majesty Snow and getting him to agree to teach them sound skills… this was harder than reaching the sky!

This also led to many sound players directly deleting and making a new account. However, there were always newcomers who were attracted by His Majesty Snow’s video. These newcomers chose to become sound elementalists and repeated the road of being pitted.

Now…

They were going to have a beautiful mermaid mentor? They didn’t want to graduate!

After this announcement was released, the Starry Sky forum once again sparked a heated discussion. New players who had previously been on the sidelines due to the difficulty of the sound system became eager to try again.

After all, His Majesty Snow was really powerful!

He proved that the sound system could not only provide god-level support, but also deliver violent output.

This was a career with an extremely bright future!

This also made the old players a bit envious of the newcomers.

They might’ve grabbed the time and grew faster than newcomers, but the pioneering period also meant they lost more choices than the latecomers.

There were gains and losses. This could be considered a type of balance.

It wasn’t just the players. As the concentration of elements increased, the number of children with elemental affinity tested this year had increased significantly.

Among them were more than ten children with the sound talent.

They were still learning meditation and body tempering while laying the foundation with other departments, but Dean Justin had always been worried about their future.

After all, there would be more and more children with the sound talent in the future. By then, the tragedy of delaying the development of the children might happen again…

Now with the help of the sea elves, Dean Justin could finally put his mind at ease!

In addition to the children who remained at the academy, he even contacted the sound department students who had already graduated.

There weren’t many of them since the sound type was ultra-rare. They were all unable to train due to the severance of the inheritance, and stopped at below one star.

The fact that they were able to detect an affinity for the sound element even when the concentration of this element was low showed that they were children with great talent.

Dean Justin had always felt sorry and distressed on their behalf. Now, it was finally time to make amends to them!

They might’ve missed the best time to train, but His Majesty have already proven to the world that it didn’t matter when they started training or how old they were. It wasn’t too late to become an elementalist.

He sincerely hoped that with the help of the sea elves, the Roland Empire would be able to have one or two more great sound elementalists like His Majesty.

The role that the sound elementalist could play in a big war was too powerful!

Due to this, the sea elf teachers received an extremely warm welcome in the Elementalist Academy. The most intuitive feeling was—

They received a lot of gifts every day!

Their favorite gift was naturally the chocolates.

In the minds of all the sea elves, including Chief Heidi, chocolate was considered to be the most delicious food in the world. Nothing could please them more than chocolate.

Therefore, the sea elf instructors would bring these gifts back every day to share with their brothers and sisters while telling them about the interesting things that happened in the academy that day.

This also made the sea elves, who were originally reluctant to leave the elf lake, start to waver.

As time went on, they found that there was really no harm in doing such a thing. They followed in the footsteps of their fellow clan members. Starting from the Elementalist Academy, they started integrating into the life of the Roland Empire.

Of course, these were all things for later.

It had only been a month since Grumpy Little Rabbit and his ten person team went to the bottom of the sea to carry out their mission.

In this month, in addition to the production of the underwater breathing potions, the other players hadn’t been idle.

Most of the player teams had already completed the crafting of the elemental cannon.

After submitting the final product, they obtained a complete blueprint and had the experience of the successful production. This made the production of the second one easier.

What most of them lacked was materials.

The rising price of materials also made the business of the auction house better and better.

There was no shortage of people who spent lavishly among the players.

After all, the price of the login device for Starry Sky Age was so high that it was destined that the proportion of rich people in this game was much higher than other games.

Now the Xu Group had increased the number of Starry Sky Age experience stores to 200, but it still couldn’t meet the needs of the majority of players.

Fortunately, the number of factories was also increasing. The production capacity of the game cabins would gradually increase.

More than two months after the server was opened, the officials announced more news. The age limit of Starry Sky Age would be raised from 35 to 45 years old.

In the future, the restrictions would be gradually lifted based on experimental data with the ultimate goal of making it a game for all ages.

Some people predicted that when the age group reached 70-80 years old, Starry Sky Age might truly become an epoch-making game.

After all, the elderly were the ones who had the most money and free time. If they could regain their youth and vitality through games, who could resist such temptation?

For now, what did the increase in the upper age limit mean for the majority of players? It was that there were more people competing with them for the game cabin!

The scariest thing was—

Their parents had joined the battlefield!

This group was the one who really controlled the economic lifeblood of the family. They might be the busiest and most hardworking age group, but playing Starry Sky Age didn’t take up work time.

Work hard on their career during the day, and use their sleep time to travel through the starry sky at night, leaving behind the burdens of reality to go on adventures in this vast land.

Who could stand it?

Young people generally weren’t happy, but they would still register accounts for their parents and use their parents’ accounts to grab tickets. This increased their probability of being selected.

In any case, after the open beta, the buyer and user didn’t need to be the same person. Multiple people could share one gaming helmet.

In short, it was a profit if they grabbed it!

However, this also gave rise to a group of scalpers who drove up the price of game cabins from 100,000 to 500,000. The price of gaming helmets also increased to more than 10,000.

In order to curb this chaos, the game company had to take measures like during the closed beta.

The game cabin could only be used by the purchaser. To unbind it, they needed to go through a series of complicated verification procedures.

This was especially true for the game cabins, which allowed the game center to monitor the player’s physical data in real time to prepare for unexpected events.

Moreover, the same ID card could only be used for purchase once.

In addition to this, the authorities issued a clear ban on this type of resale at a higher price. They emphasized that Starry Sky Age sold a game service. Only players had the right to use the game cabin and game helmet.

Once the game cabin or game helmet were disassembled without permission, a self-destruct procedure would be triggered and the game company would call the police.

It was still impossible to completely stop people from engaging in private transactions, but it did have a certain inhibitory effect.

After all, the same ID card could only be used for one purchase. This meant that if they sold the game cabin and game helmet, they might not be able to play Starry Sky Age in the future except by going to the experience store.

Players would be cautious before reselling.

***

On this day, Grumpy Little Rabbit lay down in the game cabin. The moment he opened his eyes, he felt a familiar sense of oppression. He opened his mouth slightly and blew bubbles in the water.

Sea elves could breathe in water.

Even though he was a sea elf now, he still felt it was amazing.

He glanced at the teleportation circle below the Tree of Life.

This teleportation circle wasn’t very big and could only accommodate up to 500 people at a time.

Recently, more and more people have come over after accepting the mission. As for the other sea elves, they had been transferred out, leaving only him and another sea elf NPC.

The permanent mission he accepted would give him rewards such as reputation after completing it every day. They weren’t particularly generous, but they weren’t bad either.

After all, his mission was to just sit here in a daze.

His NPC companion patrolled diligently every day, but no matter how much he patrolled, they could never escape from under the canopy of the Tree of Life.

The boy sat on the branch in a daze for a while. Finally, he opened his address book and sent a message to Lin Mu.

[Grumpy Little Rabbit]: Brother Lin, do you want the leaf of the Tree of Life? I want to sell them.

Lin Mu was stunned for a moment when he received this message.

He was also currently at the bottom of the sea and secretly using instruments to detect something with a few companions.

The team of ten had received generous rewards after completing the mission of rescuing the sea elves. The lost experience couldn’t be recovered but the rewards were worth it.

One of them was the blessing of the sea elves’ Tree of Life.

After being blessed, they would be able to temporarily gain some of the abilities of the sea elves such as breathing underwater, seeing in the dark, speaking in water, etc.

Possessing these abilities undoubtedly put them one step ahead of other players and allowed them to obtain subsequent underwater exploration missions.

They needed to collect environmental data of the sea elves’ territory and bring it back to the NPC. They would analyze it and start drawing a guardian circle adapted to the bottom of the sea.

At that time, Qing Yan would do the same thing.

Use a card to bring the protective magic circle to the bottom of the sea.

Thus, Lin Mu was a bit surprised when he received the message from Grumpy Little Rabbit.

The leaf of the Tree of Life was a very precious item. It was estimated that it would be difficult for any player to get one.

He hesitated and put away the instruments for the time being. After greeting his companions, he cautiously swam back to the protective area of the Tree of Life.