Monsters Are Coming-Chapter 6 - Cyber Backseat Driver

Star Network Forum: Human Race Ascension.

Section: "Dark Land - Player Recruitment"

[Gale Guild is recruiting new members. Favorable benefits with a guaranteed minimum of 200 earnings per day. Members must follow guild activities and obey management instructions.]

[Water Pool Liangshan Guild is recruiting active players, daily activity is recorded and those insufficient are kicked.]

[Hero Guild is recruiting strong players, requires battle strength to be within the top 100,000 in the Human Clan Federation region. Members must participate in every event. President regularly offers red packet bonuses, and the guild has many single ladies who are beautiful and have sweet voices.]

...

After a quick search, Li Zheng soon found a familiar guild name.

He opened the post, copied the admin account, and then opened the chat app to add it.

Soon enough, a verification passed pop-up appeared.

Black Dawn - Little Black: Friend, are you interested in joining our Black Dawn Guild?

Game Working Party: Yes, our team currently has ten people... If I may, what are the guild benefits like?

Black Dawn - Little Black: Seeing your ID, you're certainly a Working Party member. Our guild management is comprised of well-known real-life entrepreneurs. We can buy all the resources you produce at high prices. What you need to do is participate in regular group activities. Once we establish our guild in the game, you will need to complete the daily guild tasks every day, providing resources for the guild's development, of course, all of this is paid.

Seeing the response from the Black Dawn admin, Li Zheng felt excited.

This organization definitely looks powerful, future earnings are seemingly guaranteed.

So, he quickly replied:

Game Working Party: We are willing to join. Currently, we have ten members, and a few more brothers will join later!

Black Dawn - Little Black: Good, first provide a screenshot of the game purchase e-receipt.

Game Working Party: Huh? We need to provide proof of purchase?

Blood Dawn - Little Black: Recently there are too many muddying the waters. We've added several who mingle in our group to probe game content, but in reality, they are Backseat Drivers who haven't even bought the game, just wasting our time. To minimize such incidents, we need to verify that brothers who want to join the guild have bought the game before allowing them into the guild group.

Game Working Party: ...

Seeing Li Zheng not replying for a while, the other side sent a scornful emoticon:

Blood Dawn - Little Black: Hehe, I knew it's most likely another Backseat Driver. You're the fifth one today; let's mutually delete each other.

...

After being deleted, Li Zheng had to return to the forum to continue searching for a game organization.

But another round of searching found that every team leader recruiting new members invariably required a digital purchase receipt.

Li Zheng could understand this requirement, but he also felt utterly helpless.

They all downloaded the game via illegal links, how could they possibly provide a digital receipt for game purchases?

After being continuously rejected, Li Zheng didn't give up and continued browsing the forum.

Eventually, he found the following post:

[Star Sea Guild recruiting active Solo Players.]

Recruiter: Star Sea

Content: In my past life, betrayed by a loved one, brothers turned against each other, the guild management took away my wealth. Today, reborn back to the day of Dark Land's server opening, I am determined to take back everything that belongs to me, join the guild and listen to my revenge plan.

Contact information: 234****

...

After passing the friend verification, Li Zheng asked nervously:

Game Working Party: Are you recruiting solo players?

Star Sea: Yes, brother, do you want to join? (laughs loudly.jpg)

Game Working Party: Yes, our team of ten would like to join the guild.

Star Sea: So many people, welcome, warmly welcome (drooling.jpg)

Game Working Party: May I ask what benefits does the guild offer?

Star Sea: Sorry, we're just a guild for Solo Players, no money to give benefits. We focus on happy gaming, don't compete for rankings, nor do we actively recruit skilled players or pay-to-play players. However, profits earned by the guild will be shared among all members.

Li Zheng felt a bit disappointed by Star Sea's response.

But at this stage, they really need to join an organization to share game intelligence and discuss game content.

After pondering for a while, Li Zheng decided to take his brothers to check out the guild first and leave if it doesn't suit them.

Game Working Party: We're willing to join.

Star Sea: Welcome new brothers to join. You can forward the group chat link to your friends to join first (share link: Star Sea Bouncing Disco Chat Group)

After choosing to apply for entry, Li Zheng passed the verification the next second.

He then forwarded the link to the Liver Emperor Group.

The responses he got were a series of repeated messages: 'Godfather, you really didn't disappoint us.'

Soon, ten players from the Liver Emperor Group passed verification and joined the Star Sea Chat Group.

With the addition of new members, the group became particularly active, full of welcoming emoticons.

At this time, a player posted a message:

Star Sea - Strong Bull: What skills did you guys learn at level 2? I think both Dark Grasp and Dark Amplification are good; how did you guys choose?

Star Sea - Little Dian Dian: Suggest choosing Dark Amplification. There's a limited number of energy bars early on, not advisable to take active skills.

...

A heated discussion about the choice of initial level 2 skills erupted in the group.

This left Li Zheng and others utterly confused.

Learning skills at level 2? There seems to be no such setting in the game.

Heart Killing: Sorry to interrupt, but where can one learn initial skills at level 2?

Star Sea - Strong Bull: ??? Isn't there an automatic trigger for a skill learning quest at level 2? (confused.jpg)

Family Shared Godfather: Damn, what skill learning quest? We never received that.

Star Sea - Strong Bull: Impossible, it's an inevitable main storyline task, otherwise how could the main storyline progress?

Chi Tu: Dude, where's the main storyline task in this game? Isn't it highly free-roaming with randomly triggered tasks?

Leopard Head Zero Charge: Yeah, the newbie guide clearly stated that the game's tasks are randomly triggered, how could there be fixed main storyline tasks.

Star Sea - Frenzy Shark: Guys, are you sure you're in the right game group? This is the "Dark Land" player group; what game are you playing? (puzzled.jpg)

Star Sea - Night Hawk: Wrong group, right? How could there be no main storyline tasks, you're supposed to automatically take them at the start (confused.jpg)

A series of replies made Li Zheng and others even more confused.

The group then went back to discussing in the Liver Emperor Group:

Family Shared Godfather: Brother Li, you probably joined the wrong group; these players aren't playing the "Dark Land" released by Moon Eclipse Clan, it's just a virtual reality game with the same name.

Facing the inquiries, Li Zheng was also baffled and then opened the forum to check the Star Sea Guild recruitment post again.

After confirming it was to recruit for the "Dark Land" newly released by Moon Eclipse Clan, he was even more bewildered.

Recalling the previous few guild admins mentioning the need for verification of electronic purchase receipts before joining the group, Li Zheng suddenly realized a possibility.

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Game Working Party: Damn, we might have entered a Backseat Driver group; they are discussing cyber virtual game content, not real players.

Chi Tu: Hahaha, Backseat Drivers are terrifying, they can chat so enthusiastically without even having the game, talking as if they really played.

Family Shared Godfather: I'm dying laughing, although we play a pirated version, at least it's the real "Dark Land". Much better than them simulating game content through chat, no more to say, I'm leaving the Star Sea group first.

Heart Killing: Hahahaha, the players in this group are really interesting, cyber reality up in the clouds, the content is entirely based on imagination, whatever they want, they have.