Chapter 227: The Power of a Seed

No one could have anticipated this.

A faction had actually been eliminated in the very first round.

Under normal circumstances, a strategic board game like Monopoly required dozens of turns to decide a winner.

Even at the absolute worst of times, with the most terrible luck, lasting five or six rounds was the baseline.

Someone looked up at the screen of light in the sky:

"Faction No. 7 used a Designated Dice Card. They really did team up with Faction No. 3 in secret."

"Since Faction No. 7 used a dice card first, Faction Fifteen couldn't play their Designated Dice Card anymore. Maybe they just didn't expect anyone to target an unaffiliated team."

"That's not right. What about their Bye Card?!"

That remark left the crowd puzzled.

Exactly. Even if they couldn't dodge the attack, they still should have had a Bye Card.

Sure, losing their Bye Card meant they would definitely be targeted in the next round, but it was still better than being knocked out right now.

While everyone was still reeling in shock, a sudden cry of alarm rang out.

A slightly chubby man sat slumped on the ground, a pale, desiccated corpse leaning against him.

It was a man's body, but completely different from a typical corpse withered by time. The skin lacked any wrinkles or tears, and rosy blood vessels were still visible beneath its sunken cheeks. The eyes, with their dilated and unfocused pupils, didn't show much fear of death.

It looked as if a normal person had all the muscle beneath their skin drained out in an instant, dying before they could even react.

This was far more terrifying than the people simply standing frozen in place with vacant eyes!

"He... he was my friend... from Faction Fifteen..."

The chubby man's face was plastered with terror. After a brief pause, he mustered the courage to pull the dried corpse closer, staring at it intently. A moment later, his eyes turned red:

"Their team chose to land in the Baile Manor region, but they didn't get along with the leading Player team there. So, those Players deliberately blocked them from joining. They even used some unknown method to convince Baile Manor's commander to reject them."

"I work under Inspector Bi in Bianliu County. He couldn't get into Bianliu County, so he became part of an unaffiliated team."

"They didn't have many assets to begin with. It was sheer luck they managed to grab a few plots of land."

"In Stage B, with only eight or nine people to start with, they still had to assign one person as the commander, one as the game piece, and one to roll the dice."

"After Stage A ended, he told me they definitely wouldn't survive Stage B. He even went out of his way to arrange his final affairs before coming in."

"But... but I didn't expect it to happen this fast..."

As he spoke, tears streamed down his face.

Someone standing nearby asked, "Why didn't they use a Bye Card?"

"I... I don't know..."

The chubby man stared blankly.

Nearby, the woman in the leather skirt smoking a cigarette watched the scene. Originally intending to stay quiet, she slowly spoke up, revealing a bit of insider information:

"Not every team has the same cards."

With that, she turned and walked away.

The crowd hadn't expected this hidden layer of rules, and a heated discussion instantly broke out.

Only the chubby man remained seated, hugging his friend's corpse and weeping in silence.

Hidden in the crowd, Xu Weizhou and Fan Jue noticed this intersection of joy and sorrow. Xu Weizhou let out a long sigh:

"I can understand how he feels. This damn world..."

"Yeah, that's just how the world is."

Fan Jue nodded:

"Nobody cares about the joys and sorrows of the vast majority. Caught in this cycle between the Surface World and the Inner World, just preserving yourself is a blessing."

With that, he patted Xu Weizhou's shoulder:

"If I die someday, I hope I get the chance to settle my final affairs too."

"..."

Xu Weizhou's expression grew complicated.

He knew that Fan Jue's parents had already passed away, leaving him completely alone in the world.

Finally, he nodded.

...

...

The first round of dice rolls was complete.

The fifteen teams had already been reduced to fourteen.

Yan Jing looked up at the screen of light. The board largely remained the same.

The Players selected as game pieces were all relatively equal in strength. As long as they landed on a level-one Combat Grid and faced an opponent at thirty percent strength, they could essentially win with ease.

"Begin dice roll."

It was Faction No. 1's turn to roll the dice again—Zhou Xian's group.

The light screen quickly displayed the number rolled on the dice above Zhou Xian's head:

47

Compared to his previous 27, this roll was much higher, though it still wasn't enough to exit the Stone Mountain Domain.

However, because Bai Qiu had traded away Regional Grid 74, it now belonged to Baile Manor's territory. It was a Combat Grid.

Grid 74 wasn't too far from Grid 56 where Yan Jing was located, but getting a clear view of it was somewhat difficult.

Once past fifty grids, it was on the other side of Stone Mountain.

Many Players who had rushed over to watch Yan Jing now ran toward Zhou Xian's side, wanting to see what a Baile Manor Regional Grid looked like.

Yan Jing watched the Players passing by his Regional Grid and suddenly found the situation quite amusing.

This new era gaming machine truly had orchestrated a game.

If you were in it with your life on the line, naturally, nothing about it would feel fun. But if you shifted your perspective and treated yourself as a spectator, this game would probably be massively popular.

Could it be that this thing was originally built just for this purpose...?

As Yan Jing pondered this, he suddenly noticed a few familiar figures approaching his Regional Grid.

"Old Yan! You doing alright?"

Xu Weizhou stood outside the Regional Grid, waving at him.

Yan Jing smiled in response.

"Brother Yan, what's inside there?"

Chen Dalang had also followed the crowd over and was now looking at the small wooden cabin behind Yan Jing.

"A beautiful bride."

Yan Jing laughed.

"I saw on the screen that you satisfied the bride's demand. What was it, care to share?"

Chen Dalang asked curiously.

Before Yan Jing could answer, several more people walked over.

There was the leather-skirt woman with a cigarette dangling from her lips, the man dressed like a high schooler, and Yan Jing also noticed an exceptionally tall and sturdy woman who looked to be two or three meters tall...

He had obtained general background info on the participants from Shen Youran, so he knew where these people came from. But as for which factions backed them now, or what their attitudes and motives were, that was hard to say.

"We had people check! You're the one who killed Brother Ming! And you injured Brother Qian and Sister Yue!"

The one who spoke was the boy dressed as a high schooler. He glared furiously at Yan Jing, making absolutely no effort to conceal his murderous intent.

Yan Jing chuckled:

"That was me."

"You weren't there that day."

Hearing this, everyone understood the implication behind Yan Jing's words:

If you had been there that day, you would have ended up the same way.

The young man trembled with rage:

"Just you wait. When Brother Cheng finds you, I hope you can still talk this big!"

"I hope so too."

Yan Jing offered a slight smile.

Right then, the crowd heard a wave of exclamations coming from the direction of Regional Grid 74 in the distance.

Soon after, a new prompt appeared on the light screen in the sky:

"Begin dice roll."

Clearly, in just a few seconds, Zhou Xian had already finished his battle.

"What a fuss over nothing."

The high-schooler-looking man scoffed as he looked toward the people still shouting in the distance.

Anyone could tell that Zhou Xian had solid combat strength. Since he could defeat a phantom of their own boss at thirty percent strength, dealing with someone else was naturally no problem either.

But soon, word trickled back.

The phantom image in Baile Manor actually belonged to the captain of the team from the Fourth Ring Domain.

And facing that phantom at thirty percent of its power, Zhou Xian had only thrown a single punch.

"..."

At this, the boy fell into silence.

His own boss was naturally strong, but rumors said that the two teams from the Fourth Ring Domain and Third Ring Domain this time were terrifyingly powerful as well.

Before leaving Longhe City, the faction backing them had specifically instructed them not to clash head-on with those two teams.

Looking at it now, that Zhou Xian... really might be something else.

Still, that was only at thirty percent strength.

With that thought, he regained his confidence.

Soon, Faction No. 2, the unaffiliated team, finished their move.

Then, it was the long-haired man's turn to move again.

The dice stopped rolling:

51 points.

Adding his two dice rolls together, the long-haired man's position advanced to the 68th grid, which also happened to land in the Baile Manor territory.

And... it was a Combat Grid too!

Seeing this, the crowd's interest was piqued.

Although they wouldn't fight each other directly, now that they had a shared benchmark, couldn't they compare the two men's strength?

In an instant, everyone hurried toward the 68th grid.

Meanwhile, Yan Jing leaned against the wooden cabin's exterior wall, staring up at the sky and enjoying a rare moment of peace.

But just then, a voice called out from afar.

"Xiao Yanzi!"

Yan Jing's pupils contracted, and he immediately turned his head toward the sound.

He found Lin Xiaoran looking at him with a wide grin.

"Star Reporter Lin," Yan Jing smiled. "I don't recall us being close enough for nicknames."

"Just testing your reaction."

Lin Xiaoran lifted the camera in her hands and teased, "Great reaction, by the way."

"Aren't you going to watch the fight, Reporter Lin?"

Yan Jing turned his head back, continuing to gaze at the sky.

"You looked pretty lonely over here, so I figured I'd keep you company on behalf of Big Sister Shen!" Lin Xiaoran fiddled with her camera:

"Besides, there's nothing much to see. Even though Rainbow City doesn't rank high in the Fifth Ring Domain, Zhou Xian is different. That guy named Chu Ming couldn't possibly be stronger than him."

"Is Zhou Xian really that strong?"

Yan Jing's interest was piqued.

"Yeah, very strong. Very, very, very strong."

Lin Xiaoran said 'very strong' four times in a single breath:

"Earning the title of Seed in Rainbow City is proof enough of how powerful he is."

"Being a Seed in any ring domain means he has been designated as one of the top one hundred of his generation in that domain. Furthermore, it's a guaranteed spot in that top one hundred."

"What do you mean a guaranteed spot in the top one hundred?" Yan Jing asked, highly intrigued.

Lin Xiaoran kept snapping photos of Yan Jing with clicking sounds as she explained:

"As you grow older, assuming your Tier doesn't change, the frequency at which the Inner World summons you drops lower and lower. Many experts interpret this as the Inner World's stabilization mechanism for survival rates in the Surface World. Put simply, it ensures the population of the Surface World doesn't die out."

"There isn't just a simple threshold—like saying once you hit forty, the frequency drops by a set amount. It's not like that. It's a complex fitted curve."

"A King Grade entity once summarized a formula that factored in both a person's age and their Tier. It sorted people into different batches—what we commonly refer to as a generation."

"For example, even if you're only at the Fourth Tier, because you're only in your twenties, you might be classified in the same generation as a forty-year-old at the Sixth Tier."

"Everyone in your generation has the potential to reach the Summit."

"And when the vast majority of geniuses lose their potential to reach the Summit, that generation comes to an end."

"So, having a guaranteed spot in the top one hundred means that after comprehensive evaluations, the Fifth Ring Domain determined that as time goes on and people in the Fifth Ring Domain fall behind one by one, you will inevitably remain in the top one hundred of your generation. That's why they grant you the title of Seed ahead of time."

Yan Jing nodded:

"I see."

"Then, aside from the Seed title, is there anything else that proves Zhou Xian's strength?"

"Lots of things. Let me think... To give you a straightforward example..."

Lin Xiaoran tilted her head back, deep in thought. Suddenly, a noisy and heated debate erupted from Grid 68 in the distance.

Xu Weizhou rushed over from afar, eager to share what had just happened with Yan Jing.

"Old Yan, you have no idea what just went down. That kid who was talking big? His boss fought that phantom from the Fourth Ring Domain for three whole minutes and had to use two Rituals just to win."