Before the vitality fruit landed in his stomach, Bian felt chills running through his body. He was quite literally shivering.
He willed himself to focus and circulate the dongxuan sutra, feeling the chill circulate to every part of his body.
From the crown of his head to the heel of his feet, his whole body was shaking. It felt like the grape was slowly dissolving in his belly, releasing endless streams of energy.
He felt shocks travelling up his spine, his brain was rattling, the pressure of the world on him was reducing.
After an unknown period of time, a metallic liquid seeped out of his body and wrapped him up.
It covered most of his body, from his legs to his head, leaving his face exposed.
The armor seemed to move. Bian expected it to liquefy again, either to form a geno armament or make him a xenogeneic.
It was vibrating, but in the end, the energy from the vitality fruit had run out. He could not become a noble.
He let out a breath of cold air and checked the time.
"Two hours left until the first rounds today. Unlike the match from yesterday with only a hundred people, there will be a thousand this time. It's expected to go on for hours."
Bian still had plans to head to a casino, but he put those plans on hold for now. He settled down and kept practicing the common language, mainly perfecting his reading and writing.
Two hours later and Bian was very confident of his orthography. He didn't dare claim he knew every word, but having understood the principal regular expression of the language, he would be fine.
"My brain is much sharper now. I should be able to do well in the game. If I can get the Viscount geno fruit, even the Story of Genes should be able to progress."
His heart jumped as he realised this was a very good opportunity for him. Then afterwards, he would travel to a less advanced region so he could quickly fill up his tallies.
Moving to the gaming chair, he put on the headset and started the game. He entered the waiting lobby for his match, astonished by the number of players around.
This time, he remembered Cicely's advice and turned on the audio system.
"Let's freaking go, you and me, we'll land at farmland first things first and settle this with our fists."
"Who you looking at noob, I'll crush you like a bug."
All sorts of insults and boasting, but what Cicely said was true, the sense of hearing was better.
Bian studied the map with a grave expression. It was larger than the one he had played on before, but not large enough to accommodate a thousand people.
"This isn't a battle royale, it's a meat grinder. A way to filter the masses and bring out the most skilled or luckiest."
Landing in the city would surely be more dangerous as they had tons of materials and weapons. Naturally, Bian would have avoided the hassle of so many players, but now he needed as many weapons as possible.
They waited for half an hour before the countdown started. Bian scrolled through the options, picking the smoke bomber class.
He didn't pick a point on the map just yet. Wanting to try something, Bian activated the Emperical Will.
Like he expected, the only threads that formed pointed towards the screen. There were so many though, that it did not help Bian to make a choice.
"Unfortunately I cannot influence the Emperical Will. The threads don't tell me whether it's a weapon, armor or material."
Even if he felt a slightly thicker thread, he couldn't locate its exact point. The threads were invisible after all, he only sensed their pull, he couldn't see them.
He selected an area with a lot of thread towards the corner of the map.
"I'll move with the wall of fire. That way, I only have to watch my flanks and my front, my back is secured."
After making his choice, he could only wait for the timer to round up.
Amidst a group of players with unique skins, one was wearing a mascot on his head that resembled a bear.
"BigBear is also here, that's perfect."
An evil smile crept on his lips. If he had not been distracted by Cicely's return, he wouldn't have lost.
BigBear happened to look over at that moment. Since Bian didn't have a unique skin and name tags were not visible, he thought it was just an average new player.
"BigBear what do you think our chances of winning are?"
A player that looked like a spectre asked.
"Why are you still asking? If we are lucky enough not to encounter a Viscount, of course we will win. Heck, even a Viscount might not survive if we play the game well."
BigBear boasted of their strength. They were veterans at this game who would not lose to the average player. Now, by working together, who could resist them.
Of course, since the game permitted only one winner, they would still battle it out in the end. BigBear was confident he could beat all of them.
Game Start!
Everyone teleported to their chosen destinations. Those who came late and were deliberating on the class to pick were assigned one and teleported to a random location.
Immediately BigBear spawned in, he did a nosedive towards the ground. The first to reach would have weapons while others were still landing.
He found a large machine gun and began shooting at someone who was still canopy piloting.
The unlucky player had no way to resist and was killed mid-air.
[Congratulations to BigBear for getting the first kill!]
The gun in his hand didn't slow down because of the announcement. LMGs were slow and heavy, but had huge magazine capacities. He managed to kill another player before moving to search for armor.
...
Things were even more hectic where Bian landed. Several buildings formed a maze with vertical and horizontal zip lines to navigate the area.
He landed on the roof of a building, directly in front of an SMG. Equipping it at lightning speed, Bian jumped off the roof, paragliding into the third floor of the adjacent building and spraying a player with a hail of bullets.
The crate only had a knife which was useless to him, so he jumped out of the building again, paragliding right next to a player who just landed.
"Wait, I haven't picked up a~ argh, you cheap ba-"
Bian didn't care for his words, he finished him off and broke into the next building, avoiding some gunshots.
Ratatata! Bang bang! Bam! Boom!
Explosions and gunshots rang out with chaotic harmony. Tens of people were dying by the second.
"BigBear managed to get the first kill again."
Bian found a shotgun and placed it in his bag. The bag had limited space which could accommodate any item without restriction, most people just wouldn't carry extra guns as it was a waste of space.
He jumped out, using a vertical zip line to reach the roof of the building he just left. There, a player had just killed someone when Bian sprayed them with bullets.
"Oh shit!"
The amount of cursing was insane, but Bian didn't mind. He picked up an SMG, two metal plate armors and one LMG.
Bian made sure to move left and right as he picked it up, a strategy he saw online for avoiding snipers.
He used a horizontal zip line to move to a square building that had a lot of threads.
As Bian was ziplining he saw all sorts of skills at play. Some players shot grappling hooks to move about, some drew their swords to block bullets, some could spill fire into the surroundings.
He even saw one player who summoned a turret and was firing like a madman until a player using the camouflage skill appeared from behind him and killed him.
"Interesting."
Bian got to the end of the rope. He didn't take the stairs down into the main building, because he could hear a cacophony of gunshots coming from within.
A sharp light caught his attention. He saw a solar glint appear from a distant skyscraper.
"Sniper!"
Bian dodged to the left and right, jumping off the building only to make a 180 degree turn and paraglide back into it from the window on the floor below.
He appeared in the spacious interior, surrounded by crates and three hostile players who all turned their attention to him.