Chapter 109 Preparations Before the Storm

A week had passed in the blink of an eye since the incident at the shopping mall.

Today was April 30th, and as the midnight bells tolled, the preliminary round of the Peak Tournament would officially begin.

Over the course of this week, the levels of the four members of Hell Front had naturally increased. Feng Bujue was now the highest level of the group, sitting at level 34 with over half his experience bar filled. Si Yu, Bei Ling, and Xiao Tan were all still at level 33.

In truth… if Brother Jue had put his all into leveling, he could have easily aimed for the top spot on the leaderboards, thanks to the 40% experience bonus he received for clearing a script.

But he clearly had no intention of doing so…

Firstly, he didn't want to create too large a level gap between himself and his teammates, as that would increase the difficulty of team scripts and wouldn't benefit his specialization growth.

Secondly, after the leading group of players had mostly surpassed level 30, the rankings on the level leaderboard had become very stable. If someone on the level榜 suddenly surged forward, defeating all in their path and rushing to the top, they would be easily exposed… Even anonymity wouldn't help; you'd inevitably team up with someone for a script, and they'd see your level. In the entire Thriller Paradise, there were only a handful of people who had reached level 36, and most of those around level 35 were professional players affiliated with studios. If Brother Jue didn't control his level, he'd soon become famous…

Of course, Feng Bujue had another reason for repeatedly forgoing experience rewards—he wanted to draw Excellent-grade equipment.

The [Type Zero Magic Crusher] was truly a bottomless pit of despair. In addition to the three pieces of equipment he sacrificed on the morning of the 24th, it had devoured another ten Excellent-grade items in the last seven days. Eight of these ten items were drawn from extra rewards, and the other two were cheap, useless items that Feng Bujue had found at auction.

Brother Jue also filled three pieces of equipment into the machine during his second attempt, but it failed.

This time, the machine's success rate accumulated to 6.01%...

And during the third attempt, the naive Brother Jue told himself—"Things never go wrong more than three times," so he gritted his teeth and stamped his foot, filling in four pieces of equipment. The result… was still a failure…

At this point, the machine's success rate had accumulated to 10.01%...

By the fourth attempt, Feng Bujue's mindset was similar to those gamblers sitting in front of slot machines, continuing to play even after losing hundreds of thousands.

So, another three pieces, and another failure…

The success rate reached 13.01%, but Feng Bujue's patience was nearing its end… However, he didn't go crazy.

Coincidentally, compared to the past, Brother Jue's probability of drawing Excellent-grade equipment had significantly increased in the last seven days. Although he would occasionally get things like rocks and toy baseball bats, in most cases, as long as he chose to draw equipment, he would at least get something above the Ordinary grade. This was probably also related to his level; after all, he was in his thirties now. The reward [Randomly Draw a Piece of Equipment Corresponding to Your Level] couldn't just give him a pile of manure and label it as holy_crap, right?

It was just a pity… although the quality of the items drawn had gone up, he still hadn't drawn anything truly valuable. They were mostly useless things that would cost more in fees than they would sell for at auction. Even if he didn't fill them into the Crusher, they would probably just be sold to the store. That's why Brother Jue filled them into the machine.

From this, it could be seen that Feng Bujue wasn't a pure gambler; at least he hadn't lost his mind yet, or he would have already stripped off all the good equipment on his body and filled it into the machine.

Compared to Brother Jue, the performance of other players during these ten days could truly be described as "madness."

As the date of the Peak Tournament drew nearer, various ripple effects surged like tidal waves.

Let's start with the forums…

During this period, the number of posts on the forums reached the second peak since the start of the public beta. Threads with titles like "How to Quickly Reach Level 30 in XX (where XX could be ten days, eight days, a week, and the bolder ones even dared to write five days)" were everywhere, and they were all very popular.

The replies in the threads were also very interesting. For example, one guy ran to the second floor of all similar threads and copied and pasted the sentence, "To everyone downstairs, you've already regretted spending your leveling time reading this guide."

In addition, threads with titles like "My Opinion on the Tournament System" and "What Time in May is it Difficult to Encounter Professional Players in the Queue" also garnered a lot of clicks. Honestly, reading these kinds of threads was a real waste of time… If you could advance just by studying the tournament system, the national football team would have been a regular at the World Cup long ago.

Then there were some that were purely guide threads, such as "Weapon Selection and Skill Combinations for Shooting-Type Players," "On the Power of the Summoning Specialization's Wretched Flow," and so on. The quality of these threads varied, depending on the poster's skill in the game and their ability to express themselves in writing. Some people were good at playing, but couldn't necessarily write a good guide; others wrote eloquently and convincingly, but their guides might not be accurate due to their limited skill.

The most crucial thing was… in a game like Thriller Paradise, where players had such distinct individual characteristics, it was hard to say whether learning from someone else's growth pattern would be helpful or misleading…

Now let’s talk about the game itself.

The leveling enthusiasm of players of all levels was unprecedentedly high. Those who hadn't reached level 30 wanted to obtain the registration qualification as soon as possible, while those who had reached level 30 wanted to establish a level advantage and accumulate strength.

Among all the game modes, the queuing rate for Killing Games had clearly increased recently. Many players who didn't usually like PK or weren't good at it, like Xiao Tan, had also thrown themselves into the tide of "fighting against others" in the days before the tournament began, gradually getting used to the atmosphere and rhythm of battle.

The buying and selling situation in the auction house was even more unprecedentedly hot… In the twenty-six days since the server opened, Thriller Paradise's popularity, social influence, and number of players had been steadily increasing. On the eve of the tournament, it surged rapidly. And the increase in the number of players, the number of online players, and the online time meant more scripts being generated, more items being brought out of the scripts… and ultimately, all of these things would be reflected in the number of transactions in the auction house.

The Peak Tournament, as the first major event in the game, undoubtedly attracted the attention of the vast majority of players. When they became "old players" in the future, they could say to those newcomers, "Tch… back when the first Peak Tournament was held, I did this and that…" That would definitely be a very glorious thing.

Conversely, if you were already in Thriller Paradise when the major event occurred, but you hadn't reached level 30 yet, or you entered the preliminary round but were eliminated before completing all fifty matches, then you wouldn't have anything to talk about in the future… You couldn't help but feel like "I've long been in the martial world, but there's no legend of me in the martial world. If you dig to the root of the matter, you can only ask about my shame."

Of course, situations like Si Yu and Bei Ling were exceptions. They were purely casual players, and they were both high rollers. They weren't fixated on victory or defeat, and they didn't want to become famous or anything like that. If these kinds of people weren't interested in the competition, they wouldn't participate.

After talking about the players, finally, we have to talk about the game company's situation…

As the great battle was approaching, Dream Inc. maintained their usual style—responding to all changes with constancy. They were clearly displaying the detestable face of a monopolistic company, causing their painful but happy supporters to silently offer their knees.

Logically speaking, in this kind of period, general game companies would take on a profiteering posture, launching various money-grabbing strategies…

For example, they could package a bunch of special items, give it a dog-blooded name like "Peak Tournament Preparation Pack," set a price of 998, and lure some bumpkins to take the bait, letting them flaunt their superiority or something.

Or, they could increase the price or offer bundled promotions for the double experience cards, whose sales had doubled recently.

They could also launch a few new items, like five-times experience cards, script difficulty downgrade cards… Although there was a possibility of disrupting the game balance, as long as they did a so-called "limited sale," they could justifiably rip people off at high prices. They could even do a "bundled sale," for example, you buy a game pod, and I'll give you a virtual item or something…

These methods had been used by countless unscrupulous merchants in the past, and they could be said to have been proven effective time and time again. With Thriller Paradise's current popularity, they could completely copy these methods and definitely make a killing.

But Dream Inc. was just so unique… just so steady…

At this critical juncture, they didn't make a single move.

Even the exchange rate between RMB and game currency remained stable, only slightly fluctuating from 1:2000 to 1:1900. This amount of fluctuation wasn't much different from the weekly natural fluctuation. Obviously, Dream Inc. didn't intend to raise the price of game currency on the spot. This attitude instead stimulated the market, giving players even more confidence in the game company. Many players who never spent money in the game couldn't hold back and opened their wallets one after another.

However… Dream Inc. had another characteristic—they wouldn't make a sound until they made a big splash.

Sure enough, on April 30th, they announced a shocking piece of news on their official website…

At five o'clock that afternoon, the specific rules for the preliminary, semi-final, and final rounds were announced. They were respectively named [War of the Worms], [War of the Cocoons], and [War of the Butterflies]. The three wars would successively determine the top three thousand, the top one hundred, and the top fifty.

After these three wars, only the remaining fifty people would be qualified to participate in the real [Peak Tournament].

And along with this pile of rules announcements, there was also this piece of information: [Until zero o'clock on May 1st, that is, the registration deadline. The system will select ten "specially invited players" from all the registered players to directly enter the War of the Butterflies.]