Elf Kingdom: Game of the World Tree
Chapter 1523 - 949: Planar Expansion (Part 3): Journey Through the Void (2)
Unlike many other games, this groundbreaking virtual masterpiece not only has a massive base of players whose churn rate is so low it makes every other game company green with envy, but also an even larger group of supporters whose love for Elf Kingdom is no less than that of the players.
And that is—the cloud players of Elf Kingdom.
Or rather... the "audience" of this game work Elf Kingdom.
Yes, audience.
For many netizens who didn’t get a game slot, simply learning about all kinds of in-game stories of Elf Kingdom is its own kind of joy.
Especially as the number of players keeps rising, all sorts of secondary creations centered on Elf Kingdom have exploded in an outright boom.
What can you do, the freedom in Elf Kingdom is just too high; it’s practically the perfect breeding ground for fan creations and DIY films.
As the player base grew, all kinds of excellent fan novels, movies set in Elf Kingdom, and even some web dramas sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
Just like the craze for Elf Style Music, a full-blown Elf Kingdom fever swept across the entire Blue Star.
Of course, this is also because the official Elf Kingdom team fully opened up adaptation rights, allowing anyone or any group to engage in any kind of non-profit or for-profit secondary creation.
People who fell in love with Elf Kingdom through various derivative works but never drew a slot for the game itself are called Elf Kingdom cloud players.
It’s estimated that the number of Elf Kingdom cloud players across the entire net is very likely ten or even dozens of times that of the actual players.
And precisely because of this, Elf Kingdom has an influence far exceeding its player count.
The above was how influential Elf Kingdom already was back when player numbers broke the one-million mark.
As of now, the total number of players in the game has already approached twenty million, and it’s still growing at an even faster rate.
As the map of Elf Kingdom expands at breakneck speed, the number of slots opened each time also increases.
Yet even with so many slots offered, they’re almost always snapped up in an instant.
Elf Kingdom is just too hot...
Years have passed, and not only has its popularity not faded, it’s risen to a new height as the map expands step by step and the game opens globally.
To this day, there’s practically no one on Blue Star who doesn’t know about it.
Even some old grandpa basking in the sun by the roadside will "oh-oh" a few words and say he’s heard of Elf Kingdom if you ask him.
Back in the day, as the number of players kept growing, some players did worry that the map of Elf Kingdom might not be able to support so many people.
After all... this game has only a single server, and strictly follows a "reality" mechanic.
There are almost no places in-game where mobs respawn; even monsters need a normal amount of time to reproduce, just like real-world creatures.
Resources are limited.
Even the optimistic pioneers once thought so.
The Optimists even carefully pondered how the official Elf Kingdom team would solve potential resource depletion in the Segis World as players increased.
However, by now, no one worries about that anymore.
For one simple reason—the map is absurdly huge.
These days, massive new maps of downright perverted scale go online almost daily; even the smallest Plane World map is enough to completely outclass other large virtual MMOs famous for their exploration freedom.
Sometimes when you’re exploring a single Plane, you might not run into another player for months...
The Optimists’ concerns long ago shifted from "too many players putting pressure on the Segis World" to "how to recruit more manpower when expanding into new Planes..."
They can’t help it; there are too many maps, and the number of choices for everyone is just too big.
But that’s not what the Optimists care about right now.
At the moment, his head is completely occupied with how he should greet the Thunder Clan once he sees them.
And aside from the Optimists, there is someone who’s shown even stronger motivation and anticipation for this mission.
That is the famous NPC who followed the players aboard the Floating City Dingyuan: the Goddess’s clansman, the Holy Daughter of the Life Church—Alice.
Staying in the command center, this beautiful Holy Daughter was visibly restless, unable to sit still; every so often she couldn’t help asking when the next teleportation would start.
Clearly, she’s already itching to see her Thunder Clan companions.
By contrast, another super-popular NPC also sitting in the command center—Lady Ling, the Divine Favored of the Eve Goddess—looked much calmer.
Even the players seemed more excited than she was.
The next leg of the journey went by without any real difficulty.
While waiting for teleportation, the players saw several astonishing Void Creatures more than once—such as Void Giant Whales, Void Crystal Monsters, Freedom Angels, and so on—but none of them attacked the players’ Floating City, instead giving it a wide berth.
This greatly surprised players like Gugu Bird who had done their homework in advance.
The Segis World isn’t lacking in texts that record Void-related things; according to what they’d learned, quite a lot of Void Creatures are very brutal and highly aggressive. Precisely because of this, the players specially outfitted the Floating City with extremely powerful firepower and defenses.
Yet the result... was that all the monsters avoided them.
It was as if... they were afraid of the Floating City.
This left Gugu Bird and the others completely baffled; in the end they could only attribute it to those Void Creatures sensing the blessing the Goddess left on the Floating City.
After all, a blessing is also a mark. With the Goddess now towering over Segis, no one should dare lay a hand on a Floating City that belongs to Her.
Of course, this was only speculation, and not particularly important.
Once they understood they were very safe, the players threw themselves completely into the preparations for teleportation.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
More accurately, it hadn’t even been the full three days; after just a bit more than two days, the Dingyuan completed its last teleportation.
When the final teleportation ended, the players’ Floating City appeared above a Plane light cluster that looked to be nearly two-thirds smaller than the Segis World’s light cluster.
However, compared to the brilliantly radiant Segis, this light cluster symbolizing a Plane World looked noticeably dimmer.
And unlike the Minder Plane, it had no sealing protection; instead, it lay exposed in the Void just like the most ordinary Plane...
However, if you used the Floating City’s Plane detection Magic to probe it, you’d find something odd about this Plane’s response—it flickered on and off in the display, appearing and disappearing.
This phenomenon felt like some kind of malfunctioning concealment effect.
Fortunately, while it did appear and disappear, it didn’t affect positioning—at worst it just meant they had to seize the right moment during teleportation.
"We’ve arrived at the target coordinates. Prepare for descent."
Gugu Bird’s voice once again echoed through every corner of the Floating City.
The players in the command center exchanged glances, then secretly nodded; acting commander Li Mu gave a new order:
"All forces, prepare for combat! Begin descent!"
No one could predict what might be waiting in this Plane.
But one thing was certain: so much time had passed without any contact from the Thunder Clan, they must have run into trouble.
And their job was to solve that trouble and bring the Elves home.
With Li Mu’s order, the majestic Floating City began operating once more, slowly moving as it flew toward the Plane light sphere.
As the entire Floating City drew close to the Plane light sphere, the Void gradually warped; the whole city also began to shrink.
At last, when it seemed they’d reached some critical point, the entire Floating City turned into a beam of light and, drawn by a mysterious gravity, slipped into the target Plane.
The next moment, the Dingyuan appeared above the sky of the target Plane.
However, when the players looked out at the world beyond the Floating City’s windows, they all froze.
"This... is the world the Thunder Clan used to live in?"
The Optimists widened his eyes, his face full of shock.