Born on Earth as a newborn, Zhang Yu was able to use cognition-altering magic.
The emergence of virtual reality technology, the development of the game, and even Lu Qiuchen’s crossing over—all these issues stemmed from that one accidental observation of a spatial fluctuation.
The temporal rewind they triggered back then did succeed; they returned to a time millions of years ago, but they were no longer in their original world.
Years later, they detected another abnormal spatial fluctuation. This fluctuation was very similar to the Eternal World they had expected, yet contained subtle differences.
This piqued everyone’s curiosity. After continuous investigation, they reached a shocking conclusion.
These people stranded in foreign lands had observed the Soul Realm on Earth.
The Soul Realm is where all souls of life in the Eternal World reside; it is the foundation of all living beings’ existence in the Eternal World.
The powerful beings on the Eternal Continent had discovered this plane tens of thousands of years ago, but spatial mages could only deduce its position and status through various calculations.
The Soul Realm could only be observed but not entered because no one could find the entrance to this plane.
But now, these survivors from other worlds had directly observed the Soul Realm of the Eternal World on Earth!
Although the Soul Realm and the Eternal World are not directly connected, the Spatial Lords among the survivors cooperated to try opening a passage. They didn’t want to miss any sliver of hope.
In the end, they failed—but not completely. The connection between the Soul Realm and Earth was more stable than they had imagined.
Although the spatial passage did not open, the Soul Realm was “chiselled” open just enough to create a tiny crack. The slightest trace of the breath that leaked out was enough to stabilize the survivors’ strength and gradually bring them back to their peak.
Meanwhile, newborns born on Earth, after absorbing this breath, could use magic or innate abilities. This made them more clearly realize that the Soul Realm was the source of power for the Eternal World’s inhabitants.
The experimental results of Earth humans’ contact with the Soul Realm’s breath excited them even more. The results showed that Earth humans exhibited no abnormal reactions to the Soul Realm’s intrusion; instead, their minds improved tremendously. Even souls who had lost their bodies could withstand spatial disturbances and reach the Soul Realm directly!
This discovery sent everyone into a frenzy. They decided to continue “chiselling” the Soul Realm, striving to excavate a stable spatial passage as soon as possible.
But unfortunately, the crack would automatically heal once it expanded to a certain size, so they could only “chisel” out another crack up to the maximum limit.
Realizing direct return was hopeless, they chose another path. Using the wisdom enhanced by magic, they worked on virtual reality technology on Earth.
The group planned to use virtual reality technology to separate the human spirit from the physical body, allowing the spirit to connect to the Soul Realm, walk within it in spirit form, and eventually return to the Eternal World.
Zhang Cheng, as a newborn on Earth, possessed characteristics of both worlds. Though an adult, he hadn’t absorbed the Soul Realm’s breath yet, making him one of the few suitable candidates for the experiment. He was originally supposed to be the test subject.
But because Zhang Guang intervened, the test subject was ultimately changed to Lu Qiuchen. This experiment was quite successful, and the feedback satisfied the group’s higher-ups, so they did not conduct further tests on Zhang Cheng.
As for some vague details—such as how the group contacted beings in the Eternal World or how the supercomputer sent souls into the Soul Realm—these were classified. Since Zhang Guang didn’t reveal them, Zhang Cheng tactfully refrained from asking.
After the worldview was drastically shaken, Zhang Cheng didn’t dwell on the problems caused by the collision of the two worlds. He only needed to know that his goal to save Lu Qiuchen could be realized.
*****
In the game’s second and third main storyline stages, the introduction of two different dungeon mechanisms and their drastically different gameplay eventually divided the game into two factions.
PVP players were passionate about the war dungeons between the Kingdom of Knights and the Empire, while PVE players crowded into the Windhowl Valley. Frictions frequently arose between the two camps.
This was because the daily and weekly quests in Eternal granted fixed experience points plus a percentage based on current level, which forced players who disliked PVP to complete daily tasks in PVP. Meanwhile, PVP-only players had to find a team for weekly raid dungeons.
This poor design was optimized after a hotfix update, marking one of the few positive improvements since the Eternal World game’s launch.
But this meant nothing to Lu Qiuchen. Her level had reached 120, exceeding the current level cap of the game, so she could no longer gain any experience.
After the forum feature was unlocked, Lu Qiuchen eagerly absorbed all the knowledge she could, finally gaining a comprehensive understanding of the Eternal World.
Of course, there were things she found disgusting, such as various R18 fan creations based on her image… Although the game’s forum didn’t upload these, she still caught glimpses of some censored lewd images.
Cursing those bastards in her heart, Lu Qiuchen was helpless. Without system intervention, she couldn’t even enter game dungeons now, so how could she punish those people?
With a sigh, she noted that the top-ranked player on the leaderboard was only level 60. This frustrated her deeply. If players didn’t trigger mainline quests early, given the current leveling speed of less than one level per day, she might not appear again for a whole month.
What could she do during this one-month period? Lu Qiuchen drew a blank. Looking at a name near the top of the leaderboard, she hesitated but eventually clicked “Add Friend.”
She wanted to see if she could communicate with the player, at least not revealing her current situation to her parents.
“The other party has declined your friend request.”
Lu Qiuchen stared at the message, her face darkening. Annoyed, she opened the forum and started searching for some interesting news.
“Today’s big scoop! The guild [No Brain], second-ranked in the Dragon Tomb, is accused of forcibly stealing members’ equipment!”
Seeing the thread’s popularity rapidly rise, Lu Qiuchen clicked in and read with great interest. She had experienced this incident firsthand today, and reviewing it now gave her a different feeling.
The post’s author had great writing skills—not only depicting the event fully but embellishing with fictional details to highlight the priest’s decisiveness and gratitude, while portraying Panda as a villain who betrayed teammates for money… The description was accurate and fair.
Most commenters were rational bystanders, though some tagged involved players to defend themselves. But after half a day, none of the eight involved had responded.
Seeing this, netizens took it as a sign of guilt and ruthlessly bashed them. Several guilds that had planned to invite these players also retracted their invitations and blacklisted them all.
Lu Qiuchen saw this and knew their reputations were completely ruined—all thanks to her. She folded her arms, smugly satisfied.
Meanwhile, some attentive players dug up a comment Panda had made in another storyline discussion thread at dawn. Panda claimed that the boss had killed him and said he had a full video recording.
Following the link, Lu Qiuchen found the reply and grew anxious.
She had been in a state detached from system monitoring—was this considered a trojan horse invading the system?
If her actions were discovered, would the game company forcibly delete her?
Regarding the game company’s attitude, Lu Qiuchen had no confidence. Although her main body was now in the Eternal World, that damned system still resided in her mind. If she were to be removed, the system could very well carry it out.
*****
Thanks to the company’s flexible working hours, Zhang Cheng and Zhang Yu finally arrived at the office one minute before being late.
Zhang Yu hurried to report leave cancellation, while Zhang Cheng was summoned to the president’s office by a phone call.
Seeing his father again so soon after parting, Zhang Cheng forced a smile. “President Zhang, what’s the matter?”
Zhang Guang pointed to the screen behind Zhang Cheng, his face stern. “Look at the mess you caused. You have half a day to fix it yourself. Under no circumstances can the video leak, or it won’t just be the company’s reputation that suffers—your good friend will also be in trouble.”
Hearing Lu Qiuchen’s name, Zhang Cheng immediately tensed, frowning as he read through the materials. His eyes flashed with fury as he quickly contacted his hacker friends.
Knowing Lu Qiuchen had taken the fall for him, Zhang Cheng felt even deeper guilt. He had to protect her! Ultimately, he brought her home.
Panda, I hope you haven’t uploaded that video yet.
*****
At dusk, several people were gathering in a bar’s main hall. One lowered his voice, “Bear Bro, should we just let this go? We’re powerless, why fight a big company…”
“Let it go? Hah, you don’t have any stake, but I paid for that transfer contract! That was half a year’s salary, all gone now!” The man called Bear Bro shouted angrily.
Another voice sounded weak, “But the Eternal World company is so huge, how can we possibly win against them…”
“Heh, such a big company cares a lot about reputation. But that boss in the dungeon treated that rabbit specially! I even watched the video several times. After all of us died, the boss just stopped moving! There has to be some inside story!
“They banned my forum account! I’m uploading the videos from my phone and cloud to other forums! Time to expose this unscrupulous company!”
“WC, where’s my video?? Why is my video missing?”
Hearing the surprised voices behind him, Zhang Cheng downed the cocktail in one gulp, ignored the girls trying to get close, and strode out of the bar.