Chapter 1: Tree Rings.

In the context of the increasingly developed network environment and the rapid development of science and technology, a new term "microbrain" has emerged.

It means that micro-terminal network technology is a technology that carries the most advanced network technology on more portable objects, and issues instructions through nano and light sensing technology, so as to control mobile devices well without hands. Traveling, working, studying and even having a better impact on social security.

Under the premise that the microbrain technology is becoming more and more powerful, the network has also undergone earth-shaking changes.

First and foremost are online games.

Game designers create virtual games that connect the body and brain with micro-brain devices that allow players to enter the game world in a timely and immersive way.

In other words, it is a game that allows players to actually enter the game world for adventure and life, and it is limited to 'as if'.

To prevent people from being overly addicted to online games, all games that use micro-brain technology must abide by the game laws, and must deliberately distinguish between reality and virtuality in games. Although there are many restrictions on such access, such as the inability to feel tastes and smells and the slight sense of touch, and the player must enter the game with a real name, although the appearance can be adjusted, but the name cannot be changed. At the same time, it limits the number of games that players can play, so as to prevent people from being too novel to experience another life.

It's just that despite this, it can't resist the high mood of players to experience cross-era games. Among the many games that use microbrain devices as technical support, there is one game that is particularly eye-catching:

Annual ring.

It was a game that was created many years ago by game companies in several countries, and was released after thorough preparation and careful development.

The popularity of the rings surpassed that of all games at the time, and the results of the first week of open beta caused a sensation in the entire gaming industry. In the year that followed, none of the same kind of microbrain games had half the level of active players.

It became a well-deserved number one game.

The annual rings have extremely rich and complex game settings. The variety of costumes available for players to choose from is beyond people's imagination, and the number of professions is as many as hundreds, so you can freely choose whether to become a farmer, or a businessman who is busy between major cities, or even become a dignitary after accumulating enough prestige, and of course, the most classic fairy knights. Due to the variety of professions, the skills available for players to choose in the game can easily break through thousands, in order to reasonably arrange their own professions and skill enhancements, players have invested a huge amount of thought, and the most talked about in the game on the forum at that time is the characteristics and matching choices of each profession in the annual ring.

And the most attractive thing about growth rings is the degree of freedom.

Leave the development of the world to the player, and the world of last year's round can play the role they want to become, standing on the team or opposing side of the official forces, and the player chooses for himself, whether the ending is that good is defeated by evil, or evil is destroyed by justice. And the official also pays attention to the trend of the forces in the game, and has prepared dozens of different plot lines. However, because players are too involved in role-playing, there are not many players who really promote the development of the world, and it was not until two years after the game's open beta that the development of the world plot began. In official parlance, players spent two years just exploring the world and growing up in this world.

Not only that, the NPCs in the annual rings are not full or randomly fabricated, each NPC has its own family and story background, and works normally in the game. Any action the player makes towards NPCs will result in a change in the game's story. And the animals, plants, and monsters in the growth rings also have their own ecosystems.

These intricacies make Baumkuchen more popular than any game in history.

For this reason, the growth rings are known as games where the degrees of freedom are at their peak.

Both the player's and the official's love for the annual ring is unusually high, and even the staff's account in the game is a key NPC and a world-level boss. Adding even a small piece of new discovery to their map is enough to excite all participants for a long time.

- Although, this was many years ago.

The faster technology develops, the faster entertainment facilities are updated, and the same is true for online games.

With the improvement of microbrain equipment, more games with a better experience than annual rings have appeared.

Immersive competitive games with a rainy world of bullets have become very popular, and there are more and more games under new technology, and many players have given up the annual ring to experience more advanced games, and the annual ring has gradually come to an end.

The game official did not update the technology of the times for the annual rings, but seized the market to develop new games, which made the annual rings decline again and again as if abandoned by the times and the producers.

Despite this, it has not reached the point where it is on the verge of suspension, but it has completely lost the glory and popularity of the year. Or maybe it's because the official understands that the game form of the annual ring has been eliminated, and no matter how much money and manpower they spend to update the game, they can't restore the glory of the past, so they choose to give up, and finally let the annual ring develop on its own, and may also look forward to becoming popular again in the next year.

In addition to the official hope for the rings, there are also players in the game who are still full of confidence and enthusiasm, who achieve various goals in this world and experience life that cannot be experienced in reality. The joy and novelty that the rings bring to them cannot be filled by anything else. They love the game and have adopted it as a habit in their lives.

The background setting of the annual ring Chinese Xia district server refers to a lot of materials, and is designed with mythological stories and novels with the theme of martial arts and immortals, and the data is huge and complex.

In the center of this world is a huge mountain, a giant tree towering into the sky is at the top of the mountain, and the official background describes it as the tree that supports heaven and earth, the root pillar that connects the breath between heaven and earth, and is also one of the few third-party forces in the game that grows.

As the player continues to explore the world and kill monsters and enemies, it absorbs the breath of life little by little, and finally becomes the most powerful monster in the world, emitting a steady stream of turbid gas into the magic tree around it.

This tree has been living in this form for several years, and no faction or sect has gone to crusade against it. One is that as a monster that grows, its level is the highest level, and it belongs to the monster of the highest difficulty. If the top few sects in the annual ring really want to attack, they will definitely be able to deal with it easily. But the reason they didn't do this is that the tree has been around since the Open Beta of the Tree Ring, and it has also witnessed the history of the Year Ring and the growth of players, making many players reluctant to hurt it. Or maybe it's some other reason.

In order to advance the plot of the game world, the official website has arranged many crusades, and although the turbidity has been suppressed, no one has ever killed the tree.

The weather in the game today is very good, and there is a cool breeze on the sunny sky, although the player can't feel the weather, but you can see the impact of good weather on the character from the attribute bar.

Players who play life roles in the game continue to hone their skills to get revenge, business-savvy players earn currency through their own channels, and players who go on adventures to open up the map can also enjoy the scenery, and even see male and female characters chatting in pairs to enjoy the scenery in good places.

This is the daily routine of most annual ring players.,Do what you like to do in the game.,On a whim, I invite a few friends to crusade against monsters together.,Wander around to experience different water and customs when you're fine.,If you're lucky to find an unrecorded area and explore.,If there's a material item that isn't available on the market, it's a good income.。

In addition to the daily battles between sects, I look forward to activities that can make the growth of the character to a higher level, which is the annual ring day after day. But just as the players were enjoying themselves, suddenly a roar resounded in the air that stunned all the players. They looked up in the direction the sound was coming from.

Just as everyone was talking about this puzzlement, a system voice shocked them.

The Corrupted Celestial Tree was killed.

Only then did everyone understand that the roar was the unwilling cry of the Heavenly Tree when it fell.

For a while, all players perused the system announcement, looking for the name of the player who killed the Sky Tree.

In the equipment of the game, Hong Du was so thin that his face was terrible, sweat was streaming from time to time, his lips were white, his eyes were dark and his eyes were dark, and the drink bottles scattered at his feet showed that his physical health was in poor condition, no, very poor.

He has been staying up late for two whole days, and although the game device is very similar to the sleep pod, entering the game is not the same as sleeping, but more intense brain exercise. Much less nutrients are consumed than normal movements, but fatigue is still there.

He can no longer be regarded as a player who loves annual rings, but an almost crazy annual ring player.

Hongdu's character is a young man with short black hair, wearing a thin, slightly dirty vest and a red and white coat, and barefoot in cropped pants of the same color as the coat, with a long red cloth belt tied around his waist.

Behind him was a huge wolf with shiny silver-white hair, but it was covered in scars and gasping and fell to the ground, it was his own spirit beast, the level was not high, only thirty-five, because his two hundred-level spirit beasts died in the battle with the Heavenly Tree.

In front of him is the strongest monster in the game, the Corrupted Sky Tree, and the opponent's health has been reduced to zero, but as the strongest monster in the game, no one knows if it will be resurrected and become another form to continue to fight with him, so he endured fatigue and tensed his nerves and did not relax.

Defeating the most powerful monster in the annual ring world alone is the last goal you set in the game. So you must not fail!

Hong Du breathed slowly, and kept talking in his mouth, for fear that he would be overwhelmed by fatigue and fall asleep as soon as he stopped.

The corpse of the Corrupted Sky Tree gradually became smaller, and the leaves on the tree, which were originally bright red like blood, withered rapidly, and the trunk let out a huge wail, and countless black mist escaped from its body, and then the decay and withering merged with the black earth, and finally turned into a mass of glowing black light. At the same time, the announcement of the system sounding that he had successfully killed the corrupted heavenly tree, and after reading it several times to make sure that it was correct, he sat down on the ground with a plop.

It's done, it's finally done!

It's really too difficult.,I prepared for nearly half a year to defeat this monster alone.,Before and after in order to understand the data of the monster.,The attack mode has died dozens of times.,The loss of experience alone is a terrible number.,In addition, the medicines consumed.,The props squandered the currency they had saved in the past two years.,Just the immortal rune that can be resurrected is worth a lot of money and now there's only one left.,As long as you think about it, it's distressing.。

However, he has no regrets about this result, and his last achievement goal in the annual ring has been completed. The most important thing is that the resources that are used are not wasted.

Hong Du smiled and looked at the tattered fists, and Hong Du's heart suddenly quieted down.

I've come a long way in the rings.

Then he shook his head vigorously, shook off the vertigo and the illusion that surrounded him, and mustered up all his strength to stand up again, and the next thing was his favorite part.

Slowly got up, stepped on the dark ground and walked towards the glowing clump, as he approached, the black dust on the ground was blown away by the wind, which represented the complete death of the monster, and a golden branch was wrapped in the black mass and quietly fixed in place.

Hong Du looked at it in surprise and was stunned,According to the setting of the annual ring drop,The drop of the monster is not the more abundant the better,There is a constant relationship between the explosion rate of the monster and the shipment,The fewer items dropped by the monster death, the rarer the item,The more ordinary the item,So unless it's a team to kill the monster,Otherwise, I also hope that the items dropped are not more than three.,The most feared thing for a loner like yourself is the item that the monster that is finally killed falls to a place.,

It's really good, Hong Du said silently in his heart. It's really the most difficult kill to be completed by staying up late for two days, and seeing the only item on the ground feels that all the previous consumption has been earned.

The saplings shone like gilded, and a kind of pressure enveloped them.

A sigh came from behind him as he lifted the ball of light, and he turned to look behind him... Nothing.

Hong Du smiled, because he was too tired and hallucinated.

It's just that before he could finish his sigh, a huge black tree root suddenly stretched out from under the cliff... No, it's not the roots, it's the bustling players.

Judging from their clothing, the current three top sects are here, among which there are countless people who have reached the full level of one hundred, and those old players have been blessed by the Heavenly Tree, and they were guided to become stronger before the Heavenly Tree was not corrupted, and they will not let go of themselves when they look menacing.

I should have left immediately after the kill, and the exhaustion and worries had been delayed for so long.

No, he understood that killing the Celestial Tree would face such a result.

Hong Du's fingers slid down in the air, calling out the social panel, and found that the number of private messages and emails had reached a terrifying level, and the public screen chat was also endlessly talking about killing monsters. Some of them said that they were great, and some suspected that they had used cheating, but in the end they all became a topic, and the person who killed the Heavenly Tree who had assisted the player, witnessed the history of the annual rings, and constantly spewed miasma to raise high-level monsters must be divided into severe punishments! It's not that serious at all, it's just a highest-level monster .......

Before he could make any explanations or apologies, Takayama was already surrounded by players, and he had never seen so many players since the popularity of the rings dropped, and even more fast-moving classes were approaching.

Hong Du took a step back, he was a loner in reality and in the game, no one in front of him was his teammates, and no force would help him, if he didn't want to leave, I was afraid he really couldn't leave. The silver wolf behind him howled, and seemed to see that the current situation was not good.

But as far as the eye can see, there is a cliff behind him, and there is a player in front of him who can walk all the painful paths, and there are already various hints on him that are highlighted by the long-range class mark.

"Forget it."

Hong Du no longer hesitated and walked towards the cliff behind him.

Suicide in the middle of the ring is highly punishable, and the game does not allow malicious experience of suicide death. The monitoring and judgment of the player's behavior are very accurate, and in terms of the player's malicious behavior, he would rather kill by mistake than let go, and he will be banned after repeating the suicide experience. However, in order to be killed by the player, the death drop can be very severe. Officially, it also seems that players are encouraged to experience the battle, so when the player dies, the newly acquired items or equipment will be dropped. So if you are surrounded here, then the props dropped by the Sky Tree will be 100% explosive.

"I'm dead by suicide, and if I get out of the Sky Tree prop, I can still use the resurrection prop to revive and then take it away, but if I get killed here, ...... He didn't go on, but he knew the result.

"However, it seems that I have already received a punishment warning from the system, and if I do this now, I will probably be banned. ”

Looking at the white clouds floating under the cliff, he hesitated, but now it was clear that there was no time for him to think.

The silver wolf felt the movement of his master and got up and slowly approached his master, which is the basic setting of the spirit beast, and when the player is not caught in a battle, the spirit beast will be ordinary beside him.

But a raised stone under his feet and the model of his body were stuck, and I saw that he kept running, but the distance between him and Hongdu did not shorten by a minute.

The silver wolf's artificial intelligence level is not as advanced as meter, and it will only keep speeding up when it can't get close to its owner, hoping to use this method to shorten the distance between the two.

Suddenly, the big boulder was squeezed away, and the silver wolf with the highest speed rushed towards Hongdu, looking from a distance like a pet dog that had not seen its owner for a long time, and rushed to him happily after seeing its owner.

Hong Du looked at the cliff and was thinking about what to do, but he didn't pay attention to the huge figure speeding behind him, and the silver wolf hit Hong Du straight up.

"Huh?"

Before he could react, he was knocked off the cliff by the silver wolf.

However, the silver wolf will not make such a move as jumping off a cliff, so he can only stay quietly and run in place where he crashes into himself.

The 'nearby' communication panel, which had been boiling all along, suddenly fell silent, and the players who had already surrounded the top of the hill were stunned by the silver wolf's actions. Everyone's target was actually knocked away by a level 30 spirit beast like this.

"What should I do, do you want to go down and find him?"

"Find! A few of you prepare the ropes, and you can't let those sects that have achieved light achievements take the lead. That guy will definitely die if he falls, and he must be found when he is resurrected and returns to the death point to get the dropped item back!"

"Hurry, hurry. Don't let anyone else get ahead of you. ”

"This silver wolf can really remember the word spirit beast. ”

"I'm going to grab it when I go back, I really don't know how to describe that scene just now. ”

Hong Du watched the clouds continue to fly past him, and there were two new states in his status bar: 'out of control' and 'Rapid Fall', and at the same time, his blood volume flashed red, which means that the height of his fall can cause him to be seriously injured, and when it flashes black light, it means that he is certain to die.

With a ding, the news that the spirit beast silver wolf had been killed came through.

Hong Du sighed, knowing that it couldn't act freely like a player, it should have been killed by that group of angry players, it was really fortunate to you, and I don't know if you did it intentionally or unintentionally, but it's better than not being able to make a decision and hesitate.

Fortunately, only spirit beasts that are sacrificed to fight monsters will disappear, and when killed by the player, they will become dormant and cannot be called for an hour. Then Hong Du decided that no matter how beautiful the spirit beast was in the future, he would not exile this silver wolf, and if there were activities or opportunities that could improve the level and strength of the spirit beast in the future, it would definitely make you stronger.

The time of his fall is getting worse and worse, his blood volume has flashed with a mortal black light, and he is getting closer and closer to the ground, looking at the barren black wasteland and closing his eyes, and at the same time thinking in his heart, this is just an accident, and he definitely did not intentionally want to experience suicide.

The wind was whirring in my ears, and the sigh I had heard before came again, but I couldn't hear it very clearly because of the fluttering in my ears.

But...

Thump!

The sound of a stone falling into the water suddenly sounded, and Hong Du disappeared in the air at the moment when he was about to fall to the ground.

The wind that was blowing on him disappeared, and a chill that wrapped him made Hong Du feel comfortable all over.

What's going on?

Hong Du opened his eyes slightly, and found that he did not fall to the ground or in the air, but slowly sank in the deep water. The water is dark blue and cloudy with a thick hazy feeling, and there is a strange light that flashes from time to time, and various sounds can be heard.

How could it be in the water? Could it be that the black earth I just saw was actually ice, but I didn't hear the sound of the ice being knocked open.

Hong Du wanted to widen his eyes to see the surroundings clearly, but before he could completely open his eyes, he was blown by a gust of strong wind, and as he closed his eyes in pain, the coolness that wrapped his body disappeared, replaced by the wind that was blowing from the bottom up before.

He knew he was starting to fall again.

What the hell just happened?

When the pain in his eyes gradually subsided, he put his other hand on his face, slowly opened one of his eyes and looked down through the thin slit between his fingers, but it was a completely different scene from before!

This!

He was still falling from a high altitude, but there were no mountains and wastelands around. What he was about to fall was a black forest, and the faint sun hung high in the sky.

What the hell is going on?

But before he could think clearly, the process of falling was over, and after breaking a few branches, he fell heavily to the ground, a sharp pain that he had never experienced before penetrated every inch of skin and bones in his body, and was knocked unconscious by the force of the recoil and fell into the forest.

The glowing blob he was holding in his hand also fell, bounced a few times on the ground and vanished, the branches of the mass falling into the earth, and the golden appearance was replaced by a rusty dullness. Then it slowly sank into the earth, leaking only a thin branch, and slowly growing a little green shoot, and then it never moved again.