Chapter 50

[Shock! Ten thousand people in a doomsday battle Royale, who will emerge victorious!]
[Holographic gaming may become a reality in the near future.]
[Are doomsday trips dangerous? Listen to expert advice...]
Ever since the doomsday live stream, online discussions regarding this doomsday trip had remained at an all-time high.
This holographic battle Royale pushed the popularity to its absolute peak, especially since the ten-day, nine-night doomsday travel package cost only 5888 to participate.
Furthermore, ten thousand slots had been opened, with special rewards for those who ranked in the top fifty.
Quite a few people who managed to secure a slot were already flexing online. If these slots weren't non-transferable, they could probably fetch upwards of one hundred thousand on the market right now.
Chengfeng Base.
At this moment, Luo Keqing was selecting a weapon that suited her. She had already given up on the broadsword; it simply felt too awkward to handle.
After much deliberation, she finally picked up an iron rod.
This one wouldn't get stuck, and smashing a little zombie with a single rod should be no problem at all.
Nearby, a trio of people were also busy selecting their weapons, chattering away animatedly about what kind of weapon was best to bring.
"I think a sword! This looks cool!"
"No, no, once it gets stabbed in, you can't pull it out!"
"Then a kitchen knife?"
"You can't pull that out either!"
"How about taking an iron rod like the big shot?"
"Can you even lift it?"
"..."
At night.
Xia Zui looked at the pot of flowers in Jiang Shu's office, as well as the little girl sleeping soundly atop the flowers, and fell into deep thought.
"I've tried," Song Zhao said, "she indeed has vital signs, but she cannot be awakened and is currently in a coma. It's confirmed that she is an esper, though we don't know her specific ability yet."
Jiang Shu spoke up after she finished, "She is a spatial teleportation esper."
Song Zhao widened her eyes, "What?"
If she was a spatial teleportation esper, wouldn't that mean she could teleport to another space at any time?
This was the first time she had heard of such an ability in the doomsday era. If she could teleport through space freely, she might even be able to leap across planes in the later stages.
"She should have merged with this mutated plant," Jiang Shu continued.
Xia Zui stood nearby holding a cup of tea, looking at the little girl. The girl was chubby and fair like white tea, curled up inside the flower pistil, while the surrounding petals rose and fell together.
It looked as though her breathing was perfectly synchronized with the rising and falling of the petals.
"How do you know what kind of esper she is?"
Jiang Shu chuckled, "I am a mental-type esper; it's not difficult to figure out other people's abilities."
Xia Zui let out an "oh", then asked, "What does it mean that they merged?"
She certainly knew what merging meant, but how could a human merge with a plant?
Jiang Shu reached out and gently touched a petal. "Simply put, she and this flower are already one entity. This kind of situation is relatively rare, much like Lin Wu."
"He is a wood-type esper. In the early days of the doomsday, he had a chemical reaction with a mutated vine. After merging, he became stronger, but ever since then, he could only use the vine because they are one, and it's exclusive."
"So is spatial teleportation her ability or the flower's ability?" Xia Zui raised an eyebrow.
Jiang Shu smiled lightly, "Naturally hers. This flower should be akin to a matrix providing her with nutrients. She has fallen into a deep sleep probably because she used her ability recently,"
resulting in an energy shortage.
Xia Zui came to a sudden realization, "Turns out you guys still need energy to use your abilities."
Song Zhao nodded, "Of course. For instance, if I use lightning for an entire afternoon, I probably need to rest for a whole night to recover."
"If you force your ability further, you'll end up like her—exhausted of energy and passing out."
If they didn't need energy, wouldn't they be able to pound zombies at will?
How could they possibly have been driven to such a plight by massive hordes of zombies?
"However, she shouldn't use her ability very often, and it might take her a few days to wake up," Song Zhao remarked.
Xia Zui nodded.
She had only come by at night to watch the excitement, but ran into Song Zhao bringing back a pot of flowers, so she stayed to look.
Now that the excitement was over, it was time for her to head back; she still had to prepare for tomorrow's battle Royale match.
Xia Zui greeted them and prepared to leave, only to bump right into Lin Wu coming the other way.
Upon seeing her, Lin Wu immediately smiled and said, "Director Lü, can you let me join that battle Royale too?"
Xia Zui tilted her head, "You want to experience this too? But unfortunately, no."
Lin Wu: "..."
"Then can you secretly tell me what the first-place prize actually is?"
Director Lü was so powerful, able to bring people over from other worlds and even arrange golden bodies for them; the reward must be huge.
Xia Zui smiled, "Lean your ear closer."
Lin Wu leaned in, only to hear Xia Zui whisper, "First place is an esper potion."
"What?!"
An esper potion!
"Is that the kind of potion that turns you into an esper once you drink it?"
Xia Zui nodded, "That's right, but I can't control what kind of esper you'll turn into; it depends entirely on the user's specific constitution."
Lin Wu sucked in a breath, "Are you really not going to let me participate?"
Damn it! An esper potion!
They didn't have this stuff in their doomsday world. If he could get his hands on a bottle to study, he might be able to—
"Don't even think about it. This thing cannot be researched, nor can it be gifted to others. It automatically disappears if not consumed within ten minutes," Xia Zui cut off his train of thought.
Lin Wu sighed, "Fine."
Xia Zui patted his shoulder, "Locals cannot participate in local matches, but there might be opportunities to go to other planes in the future. Work hard and make money."
Jiang Shu and Song Zhao exchanged glances behind her. Other planes.
If they could go too, would they have a chance to find something that could end the doomsday? Even something that could improve the soil would do.
"Did you hear that?" Jiang Shu watched Xia Zui's retreating figure. "Work hard and make money."
She firmly believed that one day, their world would return to peace.
The next day.
The impoverished Wu Ran had just arrived at her workstation when she opened the live stream. It wasn't yet time for Soft Soft Cola and the others to broadcast.
Right now, her heart and mind were entirely set on the battle Royale live stream.
Wu Ran opened the Maomao Platform and saw that the platform had unexpectedly created a dedicated channel solely for the battle Royale.
True to being a platform that could donate all the gift-splitting revenue from Ms. Xia in the past, their business sense was razor sharp.
The programmers must have stayed up late working overtime yesterday to set it up.
"Come look, there are so many live broadcast rooms," Wu Ran called out to her colleague.
Her colleague waved a hand, "I'm watching on my computer."
宁"No way, aren't you asking to get caught by the boss like that?"
"Nah," her colleague took a sip of coffee, "The boss is watching the battle Royale stream too, what's there to fear?"
"Besides, it's almost New Year's anyway, there's no real business. Might as well slack off."
Wu Ran gave a thumbs-up, "Alright, I'm watching on the computer too."
Compared to a phone, watching on a large computer screen was naturally much more satisfying.
She opened the Maomao Platform on her computer and clicked right into the top-ranking live stream room.
Wu Ran clicked in to take a look and saw a tall woman standing on a city wall, with a dense crowd of people floating in the sky behind her.
"Hello everyone, I am Lü Director, the initiator of this battle Royale competition," Xia Zui said, holding a microphone.
"Behind me are the participants of this competition—a total of ten thousand people. They are already fully prepared at this moment."
"Then let me first introduce the rules of this competition."
[Lmao, I see Wandering Jing, he's carrying heavy bags looking like a refugee.]
[Wow! So many people!]
[Is this holographic mode? Feeling like everyone floating in the sky looks like ghosts.]
[Rewards, rewards, rewards! What on earth are the rewards?]
[There are so many girls too, aren't they scared?]
[I see those three crouching dragons and phoenixes from yesterday, hahaha!]
Without paying attention to the barrage comments, Xia Zui held a small card and said, "This competition will last until eight o'clock on the evening of the tenth day. A ten-day, nine-night battle Royale with randomized drop locations."
"Participants can only log offline once per day. Exceeding three hours will be treated as an automatic forfeit, and refunds are not available~"
"Points in this mode mean that killing a zombie grants one point, updated in real-time on the leaderboard. Killing regular mutated plants also grants one point. Of course, if the mutated plant is powerful, points will be awarded according to its level of strength."
"During the match, players cannot harm other players or local native residents, including but not limited to humans, ordinary animals, non-aggressive mutated plants and animals, etc."
"Players can search for needed items themselves during the match. Collected supplies can be brought back to the real world after the competition ends, with a limit of up to three items. The total weight of the supplies and personal belongings must not exceed 15kg (must meet the condition of killing at least one zombie to qualify for taking items back; living creatures cannot be taken)."
[You can even bring things back!]
[Three items, if I melt gold into a big ball, does it only count as one?]
[Rewards, rewards!]
Xia Zui continued, "Regarding the rewards, I have made some adjustments. Originally limited to the top fifty to receive rewards, it is now changed to the top one hundred to receive rewards."
"The reward for first place is an esper potion. Consuming it stimulates oneself to become an esper. The potion cannot be transferred..."
"The second-place reward is a choice between a defective esper potion and a mutated pet egg. The defective esper potion has a fifty percent chance of activating an ability, and a fifty percent chance of failure. The reward cannot be transferred."
"The mutated pet egg hatches a random mutated pet, and the hatched pet will not be an aggressive type."
"The third-place reward is a holographic gaming pod, which contains over a thousand single-player holographic games."
[What?! A holographic gaming pod!]
[Esper potion! If you had told me earlier that you had such good stuff, I would have borrowed money to come too, wuwu.]