After a simple dinner, Ye Yun took some time to check Xiao Hei's progress in the dungeon on Tiandao and gave a healing spell as a reward. Ye Yun then logged out and accessed the official forum of Tiandao.
— Tiandao Launched: 21 hours 59 minutes 42 seconds. Global player spending exceeds 20 trillion! Tiandao monster drop rate increased by 0.2%!
— Tiandao Launched: 22 hours 12 minutes 14 seconds. Logged-in players exceed 2 billion USD! Concurrent online players exceed 800 million!
— Tiandao will connect with electronic gold payment in five days. Major merchants can view and apply themselves.
Three large announcements on the official website's homepage were extremely eye-catching.
The average spending per person was 10,000, equivalent to 70,000 Chinese yuan! Countless people's scalps tingled as they looked at the official announcement's data. In 22 hours, the amount spent on a game was almost equivalent to the GDP of the United States for a year! Was it really that exaggerated?
Each of the three news items was a bombshell. The third, in particular, directly affected real-world currency transactions and the financial system! Its impact on people's lives was immense.
Ye Yun was not interested in these. He found his two posts.
The auction for the quest guide had ended. The view count had only increased by over 6 million since the afternoon. The guide was auctioned off by an anonymous player for 10.3 billion. After deducting the 10% fee, Ye Yun received over 9.276 billion.
The auction for the equipment post was still ongoing, with the amount already reaching over 20 million, enough to purchase more than 200 attribute points. The number of views exceeded 40 million, directly generating 4 million for Ye Yun.
9.28 billion!
Just like that, it entered Ye Yun's in-game inventory, making him feel a sense of unreality. Had he reached his previous life's peak so quickly? And a lasting one at that.
After browsing the Tiandao forum for a while, Ye Yun also discovered several other posts. One particularly notable one was titled "Forbes Alliance—Elder Council Recruitment."
This post did not require payment to view, but its content shocked the world! According to the post, it was divided into two parts: one concerning the formation and qualification review of the Elder Council and core members, and the other detailing the use of membership fees and an overview of the alliance's future development.
Elder Council Member Qualification: Top 50 on the Forbes list! Target number: 20. Daily fee: 1 million.
Core Member Qualification: Top 300 on the Forbes list! Target number: 180. Daily fee: 200,000.
The use of membership fees would be decided by a vote of the Elder Council!
This was a veritable concentration camp for the wealthy. Once established, it would have a subversive impact on the entire world, making even the top-ranked countries wary.
After reading the recruitment notice, Ye Yun took a deep breath, his fingers trembling slightly. The issuance of this recruitment notice meant that the true grand era of Tiandao was about to begin, and large corporations from various countries would soon follow suit.
In his previous life, it was under the recruitment notices broadcast by major domestic media and financial conglomerates that he entered Tiandao.
Re-entering the game, Xiao Hei had already cleared the dungeon again and was dazed in the vast cave. His experience had reached level 8 and 34%.
In another six hours, some big players would leave the novice village through a quest. If Ye Yun continued at his current pace, he would not be able to catch up by just grinding monsters. However, Ye Yun still had an upgrade card. As long as he didn't slack off, he had ample time.
Six hours, and he still needed 1.32 million experience points. Each dungeon run yielded about 270,000 to 280,000 experience points, requiring 5 runs.
He had to complain again about the frustrating experience requirement.
It was boring. He had never imagined that this game he had played for three years and enjoyed so much would be so dull.
Finally, before eleven o'clock at night, Ye Yun's level increased to 9!
*Phew.*
Damn it.
It was too arduous.
Ye Yun directly used the upgrade card to raise his level to 10, then rushed to Old Wang's office.
Nighttime in the game, the village was still brightly lit, with more players online than during the day. A long line of people was queuing outside the quest hall to accept quests. Ye Yun finally squeezed through the crowd to get inside.
"What, young hero wishes to leave our village and travel to Liuli City? This..." Old Wang looked at Ye Yun with some difficulty upon hearing his intention.
"What's wrong, Village Chief?" Seeing Old Wang's expression, Ye Yun had a bad premonition.
"This... Jie Ming, young hero, did you not accept the 'God City Revival' quest from our Fengle Village? This quest has a certain connection."
"Connection? How does that relate to me leaving our village?"
"As the executor of the quest, you can only travel to towns of the same level as the quest objective. Our Fengle Village is still at the village level, so..." The Village Chief said cautiously, looking at Ye Yun.
"You mean, as long as our Fengle Village hasn't been upgraded to a town, I can only wander between novice villages?" Ye Yun looked at Old Wang in disbelief, his heart sinking.
Novice villages were vast, even larger than a city-level administrative region in reality. To leave a novice village, one had to get a recommendation scroll from the village chief to activate the teleportation array in the village center.
Seeing Old Wang nod, Ye Yun couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness. This was almost enough to make him cry.
"System Prompt: Player Bais from Bless Village has broken through level 10 and is the first to leave the novice village. Special Reward: 100 free attribute points."
...
Three consecutive system prompts made Ye Yun extremely envious. Damn it, another ten million gone. A loss of 10.5 million in one day was indeed remarkable.
In this game world, everything was prioritized. The second place received no reward.
Seeing Ye Yun leave dejectedly, Old Wang hesitated to speak several times, finally sighing. Legendary quests were not that simple.
On the first floor, the quest hall, despite having 10 service windows, had queues for accepting and completing quests stretching outside. Each queue had hundreds of people, more terrifying than the Spring Festival travel rush in reality. This demonstrated the game's popularity.
"Hey, buddy, saw you come down from the Village Chief's office. How was it? Can we accept quests up there?" Some people saw Ye Yun coming down from the second floor and immediately surrounded him to ask.
"Damn hidden quest, quest reward is a green equipment." Ye Yun roared and pushed through the crowd to run away.
"Holy crap, hidden quest? Go!" Hearing Ye Yun's roar, hundreds of people were stunned for a moment, then rushed up the wooden stairs, instantly filling the entire second floor and stairwell.
"Damn it..." Old Wang, who was upstairs, heard clearly and was startled. He got up to close the door, but his speed was no match for the players who were like wolves and tigers.
"Stop pushing, Village Chief, I'm first! Give me any hidden quests quickly, I guarantee I'll do them perfectly," a tall and sturdy man, over 1.9 meters and weighing an estimated 280 pounds, pushed through the crowd and shouted at Old Wang.
"You, stop pushing, I can't touch the ground!"
"I'm about to be crushed, old man. I can tolerate your hands not having a place to go, but can you stop groping and kneading so openly?" a female player turned to the elderly player next to her and scolded.
"Who's hand was it that grabbed randomly just now! If I find out, I swear, it hurt like hell," a young man, his face red, strained to arch his body forward.
The scene was extremely chaotic. How could a few hundred square meters accommodate so many people?
"Am I being held captive?" Ye Yun looked at the shaky wooden building with a grim expression.
Being unable to leave the novice village meant that many special quests and bosses he knew of in towns, cities, and main cities would be out of his reach. What was the point of his three years of experience from his previous life? How could he accept this?
Most importantly, if he couldn't leave the novice village, how would he level up? By grinding the level 10 monsters in the novice village?
"System Prompt: You have two unaccepted mail."
"System Prompt: 'God City Revival - Quest 2' activated. Please view it."
Finally...