Chapter 72: The Elders
Next, she sent everyone 10 pills each through the mail so they could use them today and tomorrow.
Some might wonder why the game only allows five pills per day, even though the time in the game and in real life is different.
This is because the body needs time to handle these pills. For younger players, it takes longer.
This problem gets better as the players grow stronger, but they don't have many Heavenly Purity Pills that are completely pure.
Impurities in the pills can make a player's foundation unstable, causing problems later. Removing these impurities takes time.
The game's time scale lets players grow faster. The special training place given by the World's Will helps build a stable foundation, which is important as players get stronger.
After getting the items, everyone went back to the game.
They used their pills and then went to the mall to see what items were left.
To their surprise, only the expensive items were still there. Xu Qianghua didn't expect the players to buy things so quickly.
Wondering why, they went online to check.
Articles talked about why someone would spend so much money on this game. Some said it was a government plot or alien technology.
Without proof, players shared their experiences instead.
They talked about not understanding the game at first and shared tips on the best time to open a pill bag.
This was very different from Xu Qianghua's last life. The game now had many more players because of his big investment.
In his last life, the game got some attention, but not enough to stand out among other VR games that made billions of luminas every day.
However, in this life, it is completely different.
Now, flocks of people are becoming players. This means that when the game merges, the number of cultivators will be higher than in his last life.
There are pros to this. With more players, the planet's starting point is much higher.
The world will improve its level much faster.
This benefits both the World's Will and its inhabitants. An increase in cultivators brings more prodigies with an enhanced starting point.
However, every advantage comes with its drawbacks. More players mean heightened competition.
What may seem like a minor issue can escalate. An influx of cultivators squeezes the space for high-level practitioners, leading to more conflicts.
But for Xu Qianghua and his team, this isn't a concern. They have all the resources to rise as one of the most formidable Family-Style players.
So, they have no worries about the future. They will, however, remain vigilant and keep their identities hidden until the game merges
After it does, their avatars' cultivation will merge with their bodies, keeping them safe.
Xu Qianghua looked at other articles to see if anything was interesting.
When he didn't find anything, he closed the news section and went back to the game to see if he had missed anything.
However, there was nothing he had to do, as he knew the Shadow would buy up any other items and send them to him. He didn't even have to be a lookout in the game mall.
Seeing this, he closed his terminal and started chatting with the ladies about their thoughts.
However, while some were relaxed, others were not.
At the World Union Council (WUC) Headquarters...
The World Union Council, or WUC, is the government formed after WWII.
This Council doesn't have a single leader but is collectively governed by 7 Elders. These people have the highest authority in their fields.
They are usually the first to know if something is happening around the world.
When they got information about all the events centered around this game, they had to take it seriously.
Each Elder had their own team to handle everything so the Elders could make the right decisions. Each team's leader is the Elder, with a second-in-command usually trained by the Elder to take over when the current Elder retires.
The team is divided into sections that cover everything an Elder might need.
This might seem like a dictatorship since these seven people control the whole world, but it's not.
There are many procedures in place to stop any misuse of their authority.
This is why the world is peaceful, except for terrorists who want to return to a time when countries compete for resources.
The terrorists think they can gain more power if the world is divided. But this has never worked. Instead, it brought the world closer together to deal with them.
However, after the game merges, all contingencies will fail.
The Elders had hoped the population would not succumb to power and instead return back to normal life, but this didn't happen. Many high-level cultivators didn't believe the old government could be effective in this new world.
They were half right. Most of the government was halted since there were no high-level cultivators in upper management to control the situation.
But that was in the past. In this life, the government knows about the game, unlike in the last life where they had no idea.
"So, does anyone know who the company behind this game is or the player who spent all this money?" the Elder in the center asked, looking at the other Elders.
"I don't know," the Elder on the right of the central Elder answered.
"Nor me," said the one on the left.
"The company couldn't be traced. It's like it was created out of thin air without any records in our database," the Elder sitting left of the central Elder said.
"So we have nothing to go on. What do we tell the public?" the central Elder asked the others, who all frowned.
They had no idea what to do. They didn't want to ban the game because they knew it would have the opposite effect.
Plus, more than one person had spent a lot of money on the first day.
Reports said more people were spending money, and the baffling thing was they couldn't track them down.
They had asked top hackers to find the people who spent all this money, but they found nothing.
"Let's think of a way to control the situation and give some kind of warning so we can better manage it if this becomes a bigger problem," said the Elder in the middle.
With that, they went to their rooms to work on how they would tell the whole world.