Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 339: Chapter 335: Sinister Closed Beta Start

Translator: 549690339

Friday morning, six o’clock.

Super Tomato updates his status punctually:

“The closed beta of ‘Speed Chase’ starts in—0 years!”

The first hot comment is a picture drawn by a player using special characters, showing a little man screaming.

The text bubble says: “Four years! Do you know how I’ve spent these four years?!”

This picture received more than 50,000 likes.

The second hot comment is:

“When will ‘Speed Chase’ closed beta start?

— Today! Today!”

Most players won’t be able to participate in the closed beta, but this time is different.

Lincoln generously didn’t require players to keep the beta a secret!

It’s not like “Paradise” last time where agreements were vague and full of leaks.

There wasn’t even mention of keeping things secret!

Under Lincoln’s special care, Super Tomato successfully received the closed beta qualifications.

During yesterday’s live broadcast, after he finished reading the beta instructions, he hesitated a bit.

He eventually contacted Lincoln on his phone to confirm if Cloud Dream overlooked something or really allowed more open permissions.

Lincoln clearly said on the phone, “You can broadcast it without worries.”

So, both anchors and players were excited.

Especially the players! Even if they couldn’t play themselves, they could at least see the actual game content!

At eight o’clock sharp, Super Tomato naturally logged into the game first thing in the morning.

He initially thought it would be like the beginning of “Assassins’ Alliance,” where he would wake up in a room and then proceed to a tutorial level.

But at this moment, he was dumbfounded, standing in place wearing a black outfit, holding an AR-15 automatic rifle, with similarly black-clothed companions beside him who had indiscernible faces.

In front of him was the brightly lit house from the trailer.

“What does this mean?” Super Tomato was completely confused.

Wasn’t the protagonist in the trailer supposed to be inside the house, being attacked? And not on the attacker’s side?

Not even one main character?

Is it this miserable?!

Not only was Super Tomato confused, but countless viewers in the live broadcast room were also spamming question marks.

Everyone was caught off guard that the protagonist turned out to be a nobody in the trailer!

No matter how you think about it, the trailer implied that “the protagonist’s residence is under attack, and after the lights go out, the counterattack begins”!

Now it’s not like that?

Super Tomato couldn’t accept this setting for a moment… and one of the leaders dressed in black had already started making tactical hand gestures at him.

However, watching the leader’s constantly changing gestures, Super Tomato’s face was filled with confusion.

What does it mean? I don’t understand!

Fortunately, text quickly began to float above the gestures— the system translated the meaning of the tactical hand gestures for him.

“Flank, eight o’clock direction, three minutes, attack.”

Although he still didn’t get the whole picture, with a leader giving orders and time running short, Super Tomato acted quickly.

Under his ordinary closed beta habits, he wouldn’t be so well-behaved in this situation.

At least he would try the “pretend to not understand” hand gestures to see how the other teammates would react.

But this sudden development caught him off guard, and he instinctively followed orders.

Once positioned, Super Tomato, based on his experience in “Assassins’ Alliance,” focused on the gun in his hand.

As expected, a skill floated above the gun: [Shooting Expertise: Level 1].

After checking the time, with only one and a half minutes remaining, he opened his personal panel.

As expected, a new set of character information appeared.

During different games, players’ personal panels change accordingly. When entering a new game, the player’s personal panel in that game occupies the main position.

The panel for the virtual world as a whole is placed on the secondary page.

This is for the convenience of players during intense battles.

At this moment, the character information panel has changed to—

“Player ID: Super Tomato

Character Level: Level 1

Combat Skills: [Shooting Expertise: Level 1], [Cold Weapon Expertise: Unlocked], [Combat Sense: Unlocked], [Gunfighting Technique: Unlocked]

Non-Combat Skills: [Driving: Level 3], [Cooking: Level 2], [Fishing: Level 4], [Playing Cards: Level 3]…

Killer Ranking: Unranked”

“What is this? My card playing skill is only level 3? Nonsense!” Super Tomato whispered in protest.

The audience saw Super Tomato’s strange focus and immediately felt he was outrageous!

“Combat Sense! Gunfighting Technique! These are important things! Why are you focusing on playing cards?!”

“Is playing cards so important that it’s worth your attention?!”

“On the other hand, how are non-combat skills determined?”

“It doesn’t seem to be inherited. I remember the anchor’s driving skill in ‘Assassins’ Alliance’ was already max level.”

Seeing the discussions in the live broadcast room, Super Tomato decisively retorted: “You guys! You lack foresight! Look at my handsome face! Who am I?”

Among the rows of question marks in the comments, Super Tomato answered his own question:

“I am the man who will become the Gambling King of Night City by playing cards!”

“Level 3 is not enough! I must reach Max Level! I want all the casinos to remember my name—Super~Tomato~!”

Super Tomato obviously understood live broadcasting well. This bragging immediately attracted a bunch of comments.

However, he soon had no time to chat with comments.

“Bang bang bang bang bang—”‘

Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot burst through the air, interrupting Super Tomato’s speech, the time had come, and the battle had begun!

Super Tomato quickly raised his gun and fired at the house.

But he wasn’t clear about the whole situation and was afraid of accidentally hurting innocent people, so he didn’t really aim properly, raising the gun almost towards the sky, and the bullets all flew towards the roof’s eaves.

Just after firing the gun for real, he immediately noticed that without the max level Shooting Expertise and the sensory enhancement effect of [Assassin Bloodline], his shooting accuracy had severely declined.

During high-speed rapid-fire, he could even clearly feel the gun trembling uncontrollably in his hand, and there was no control over it.

Where the bullets hit was entirely up to luck.

He used to feel so familiar with guns that he worried they were too realistic and might affect public security in society.

He felt that he was already very familiar with guns, and even if he lost the system’s skill assistance, holding a real gun, he could still be skilled in loading and firing it.

Moreover, even if he couldn’t hit a target at twenty meters, within ten meters, he could surely shoot accurately!

But now, holding the gun again, he no longer felt that familiarity with firearms.

Leaving reality aside, even just changing games within the virtual world, both his firearm control ability and precision shooting ability had disappeared instantly.

It was like a miraculous dream.

It was not until this moment that he felt more acutely how astonishing Cloud Dream’s technology was!

But now was not the time for heartfelt emotions; the gunfire had stopped, and his teammates had already started to enter the dark house.

“Ah–” Seeing this scene, Super Tomato instinctively reached out his hand, wanting to call out to stop his teammates.

Although he had been deceived by the trailer, with the protagonist actually outside participating in the siege, the sound of firearms being loaded inside the house was real.

Without a doubt, the owner of the house was still alive and hadn’t been hit by the blind gunfire.

Moreover, the weapons were loaded and ready for a counterattack!

But Super Tomato was a step too late.

“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!”

Three short gunshots, and the three black-clothed men closest to the house fell to the ground.

Before Super Tomato could react further, there were another “Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!” from inside the house.

The three fallen gunmen each had their heads shot an extra time, ending them completely.

The black-clothed gunmen didn’t get scared; instead, they continued to fire suppressing shots while charging into the house.

Super Tomato hesitated and hesitated, but in the end, he did not move from his position.

He just stood a few dozen meters away from the house, under the warm light of the nearby street lamps, watching the house briefly illuminated by the gunfire.

There were continuous gunshots.

But amidst the chaotic gunfire, there was one particularly rhythmic and easily distinguishable gunshot.

Noticing this sound, Super Tomato perked up his ears, pursuing this gunshot.

“Bang! Bang!” “Bang! Bang!” “Bang! Bang!”…

Soon, he found that almost every time such a gunshot rang out, the sound of automatic rifle fire would decrease a little.

So he realized: another teammate had been killed.

This also further discouraged him from getting closer to the house and checking out the situation.

Of course, more importantly, he finally realized something–

No system tasks were prompting him to attack the house!

Neither was he asked to attack or save anyone.

More precisely–

There were no tasks at all!

From the beginning of the login trial to now, it was always just the black-clothed leader instructing the attack.

The system didn’t show up at all.

There were no main missions or tutorial guidance.

Nothing at all!

During this closed beta, players were just thrown into this battlefield, and then the ownership was given up, allowing players to fend for themselves…

“Too sinister!” Super Tomato angrily denounced Lincoln’s misconduct.

If it wasn’t for his calmness, he would probably be dead along with the black-clothed people!

A bunch of Level 1 and Level 2 weaklings who directly challenged a BOSS-level opponent?

Isn’t that asking for death?!

“I bet with you guys, there must be a lot of people who will fall for Lincoln’s trick and give the first blood here,” Super Tomato said to the audience.

Comments immediately responded:

“Haha, not betting!”

“No need to bet, haha, a bunch of anchors have already died!”

“I’m dying of laughter, Yi rushed into the house and died right away without even seeing the person!”

“So far, I haven’t seen any anchor who has seen the face of the house owner! Tomato, why don’t you give it a try?”

Of course, no one could see the face of the house owner.

Inside was John Wick! Being seen would directly expose him!

In order to not be seen by the players, Lincoln even played a little trick–

As soon as the player entered the house, John Wick would immediately put down his current target and get rid of the player first, regardless of being shot.

This was because when deciding on the closed beta, Lincoln, Fred, and Samuel had reached a consensus:

“Both John Wick and Milkshake are surprises prepared for all players, not just for the 3000+ players.”

So during the closed beta, they couldn’t be exposed.

And such information, once released during the closed beta, would almost certainly be leaked by insiders.

Even if they were sued, the losses would be irrevocable.

So Lincoln decided: During the closed beta, we won’t open the main tasks! Just let the players play in Night City!

After all, Night City has enough content.

Both Lincoln and Fred were very confident: Even without main tasks, they could still provide an enjoyable experience for players!

And because they did not open main tasks, they allowed players to livestream.

As for why he would put the plot content from the trailer and directly trick players into experiencing (crossed out) high-end battle scenes…

That was just Lincoln’s small personal interest…

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