Chapter 53

Chapter 53: Poor Players

Schuck did make some sense, but Roland did not entirely agree with him . He felt that he was only making progress faster than other people because of the special hidden talent that he got by luck .

If the special talent was randomly distributed when the character was created, Mage players certainly wouldn’t abandon the opportunity . Chances were that many Mages would delete their characters and create them again and again tonight .

After he returned from the cold drink bar, Roland opened the forum again, only to discover that “special talent” had already become a trending topic .

Many players stated that they would create and recreate characters tonight to get a hidden talent .

Of course, someone asked if their hard work in the past two months would be for nothing if they deleted their characters .

The players who intended to delete their characters declared that, since the game was still in alpha test phase, they would rather try different possibilities .

Roland couldn’t help but frown . He felt that things might be more complicated than that .

Firstly, it was barely possible to create billions of AIs, but the game had achieved it . The AIs were already out there in the game .

Secondly, Roland felt that it was rather “generous” that half a million players were invited for the alpha test .

Any multiplayer game with half a million people online simultaneously would be considered a popular game .

World of Falan, on the other hand, could be played at night during sleep and did not contradict work schedules, so most people were highly active .

Even though not all the players were online, more than eighty percent of them played it every day .

An alpha test that involved forty thousand people seemed too huge .

Therefore, Roland estimated that it was just a promotion tactic . For example, the company might be short of funding, so it decided to collect more funding with the so-called alpha test .

Fifty hundred thousand virtual cabins, fifty thousand bucks for each . If they were sold out, the company could gather twenty-five billion .

The money would be enough to support research for a while .

Roland felt that the so-called alpha test was the actual beta test .

He was of a mind to remind those who intended to delete their characters, but he thought for a while and decided to drop it .

Those people might not listen to him at all . Many players would love to spend lots of money on their game character, like Li Lin .

Besides, what they were hoping to get was a hidden talent .

Roland rested for a while and practiced in the boxing club for two hours . Then, he had supper and read the news, waiting for the game to restart .

He was not in a hurry to find Betta after he entered the game . Instead, he stayed in the magic tower and familiarized himself with mental power .

Soon, a knock came from the door .

“Come in,” said Roland .

The wooden door opened . It was Vivian, who was still rather shy . She glanced at Roland and said, “Deputy chairman, a Golden Son wants to meet you . He said he made an appointment . ”

He’s rather fast!

Slightly surprised, Roland said to Vivian . “All right, got it . Thank you . ”

“You’re most welcome,” replied Vivian with a weak voice .

Roland was not bothered . He walked down the magic tower and found a bearded, mature-looking “young man” in ragged clothes at the gate of the magic tower .

This guy looks so old… Roland asked him, “Hawk?”

“That’s me!”

The young man was obviously fatter than Roland . Excited to see Roland, he shook Roland’s hand and announced, “I’ve finally found a player other than Lance . This game is too huge . It’s barely possible to hang around with friends from reality . ”

That was true!

Over the past two months, Roland had been with Betta . They had never seen another player .

Roland looked around and asked, “Should we find a place to drink and talk?”

“I’m okay with that!” Hawk scratched his head . “But we can’t talk to other citizens . ”

Roland cast Language Proficiency on himself and Hawk . Then he said, “We can now, with Language Proficiency . ”

“Shoot! Awesome!” Hawk raised his thumbs . “You are truly the First Mage . Nobody except Warlocks could cast Language Proficiency before I met you . ”

Roland smiled politely .

Hawk asked again, “Can I bring my friend?”

“By all means . ” Roland nodded . He also wanted to talk to more players and exchange information with them .

Hawk then led Roland into the city . Eventually, they found another player, Lance, in a house that was about to fall . Lance was also in ragged clothes .

A strange stink of feces could be detected .

Roland was stunned to see the filthy, collapsing cottage . “Have you been living in this place?”

“We don’t have a choice . ” Hawk looked at the sky, tears in his eyes . “We don’t speak the local language, and we have no friends . We starved to death a lot when we entered this game! Even this house was our trophy only after we fought a gang several times . ”

Lance, who appeared to be an archer, did not say anything, but his eyes were red .

“You starved?” Roland gasped hard . “What do you eat now?”

“We hunt in the woods . At first, we couldn’t catch anything due to the lack of experience, and we starved a few times more,” said Hawk as if he would rather forget the miserable memories . “Later, we were finally more skilled, but there are few animals around the city . We’ve been too busy looking for food to increase our level . ”

Well, they were truly unlucky!

Roland felt that he was fortunate to have been born in Red Mountain Town, a warmer place .

“Let’s go!” Roland patted Hawk’s shoulder and said, “Let’s have something good . It’s on me . ”

Hearing that, the two men leaned close to Roland and stared at him passionately .

Half an hour later, Roland brought them to a decent tavern .

Inside the tavern, there were a lot of mercenaries who seemed rather brutal .

Hawk and Lance devoured the meat in their hands like hungry wolves . Compared to them, Roland was much more graceful .

Roland was not focused on food at this moment . He noticed something strange when he came in .