Chapter 1006 – The Game’s Official Website

“Breathe in… breathe out…”

Xiao Xiao worked hard to regulate her breathing rhythm, trying to forcibly drag her attention back to the flame meditation image.

But after less than ten minutes, she felt a wave of mental fatigue and irritability. She simply couldn’t conjure the complete flame meditation image in her mind.

She had no choice but to abandon the attempt and open her eyes.

“As expected… it’s not that simple.”

Xiao Xiao smiled bitterly, but she wasn’t discouraged.

She knew this was the normal state of things.

The Meditation Experience Card was like training wheels on a bicycle — once removed, wobbling and falling were inevitable.

To truly master it, one had to endure countless failures.

Xiao Xiao glanced at her psychic power value. Still 9 points.

Her attempt at “meditation” just now had been completely ineffective.

“It seems I really do need to ensure basic physical comfort and minimize distractions.”

Xiao Xiao rubbed her stomach, which ached faintly from hunger. She looked at the shop interface where even the cheapest item — a Food Card: Black Bread — cost 1 Gem Coin, and ultimately shook her head.

Rather than waste precious Gem Coins on the lowest-grade supplies in the game, it was better to just log off and deal with it directly.

Xiao Xiao opened the card system and selected the “Safe Exit” option.

A slight sensation of detachment washed over her, and the ruined landscape before her eyes rippled like water and faded away.

In reality, Xiao Xiao yanked off the helmet, got up, walked to the kitchen, boiled water, and cooked two packets of instant noodles, adding a ham sausage and an egg.

As the steaming hot food settled in her stomach, she immediately felt an incomparable sense of satisfaction.

She finished eating quickly, and drowsiness followed right after.

The sustained mental focus in the game, attempting meditation over and over, had left her mentally exhausted.

She needed sleep.

But where to sleep was also a choice worth considering carefully.

Three hours in the game world corresponded to only one hour in reality.

Sleeping eight hours in reality meant twenty-four hours in the game.

In her previous life, some players had tracked the statistics and found that psychic power continued to recover even while logged off, but the recovery rate was far slower than being in the game.

The one-month safe period after the game’s launch was precious time — it was better to spend as much of it as possible inside the game.

Psychic power recovered faster that way, and more Gem Coins could be accumulated.

Although the game world was nothing but ruins everywhere — desolate and bleak, nothing compared to reality — after the apocalypse in her previous life, she had already gotten used to sleeping anywhere and everywhere.

Xiao Xiao put the helmet back on and entered the game once more.

After a brief moment of dizziness, she was back in the game.

The building remains in the game looked relatively intact on the outside, but in truth they had long since deteriorated. The slightest touch would cause them to dissolve like foam.

Even more dangerous were the places with underground spaces — parking garages, subway station entrances, underground shopping centers, and the like.

They looked more or less intact, but if a player accidentally stepped on them, the “ground” beneath their feet would shatter like it was made of paper, sending them plummeting into a pit. Death or crippling injury was the only outcome.

These kinds of “traps” had claimed the lives of countless players who ventured into the ruins to scavenge for resources during the game’s early stages.

The urban ruins in the game were every bit as dangerous as a real post-apocalyptic city.

It was precisely thanks to the experience gained in the game that when the real apocalypse arrived, players had the foresight to be cautious, and many survived because of it.

Xiao Xiao headed directly toward the outskirts of the urban ruins. The building density was lower there, underground structures were fewer, and the danger was relatively reduced.

There was also the possibility of finding some wild fruit or other food.

She threaded her way carefully through the ruins, sticking to open ground as much as possible. Occasionally, she would stop and use a sturdy wooden stick or piece of rubble she had found to cautiously probe suspicious-looking ground or walls ahead, only continuing forward after confirming it was safe.

After walking for about an hour, she finally reached a hillside where she had stayed in her previous life.

In a sheltered hollow on the leeward side, there was a narrow, naturally formed rock cave.

The space was quite small, but it could comfortably fit one adult lying down.

In the game’s early stages, the climate was still mild — there wasn’t even any rain. The only thing to watch out for was the temperature difference between morning and evening.

She gathered some dry grass from the surrounding area and spread it inside the cave, then moved some stones to build a simple low barrier at the cave entrance to block the wind.

Once she finished all this, she couldn’t hold on any longer. She crawled inside, lay down, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Across the globe, there were twelve other “reborn” individuals like Xiao Xiao.

They were spread across different continents, different countries, different social classes, and even had vastly different cultural backgrounds and life experiences.

Among them were students, office workers, researchers, retired soldiers, reclusive artists, and ordinary people struggling to survive at the bottom of society.

At this moment, all of them, guided independently by their “memories of a previous life,” had chosen to work hard at accumulating strength for the coming apocalypse.

Mo Lan monitored all of their situations through the card called Holographic Game: Apocalypse Descends.

Some of the reborn, like Xiao Xiao, felt that prophecies of apocalypse sounded absurd in an era of peace — going public recklessly would only get them labeled as lunatics or troublemakers — and chose to cultivate alone.

However, no matter how cautious their actions, they inevitably left subtle ripples in their respective social circles and within the game.

These ripples accumulated and spread, gradually exerting a subtle influence on the ordinary player base of 《Apocalypse Descends》.

Some of the reborn chose to post “hardcore” strategy guides in the anonymous section of the official website forums.

Some emphasized the importance of psychic power management and Gem Coin accumulation, pointing out the long-term value of meditation. Others shared techniques for efficiently exploring the edges of ruins rather than recklessly venturing into the core zones. Still others shared meditation methods, attracting a following of players who enjoyed delving into the mechanics.

One of the reborn, a web novelist, went so far as to start serializing a novel called 《Game Becomes Reality》 on the official website forums, scattering real information among fictional embellishments.

It sparked considerable curiosity and discussion among readers.

“She writes like it’s all real — could she actually know something?!”

“Could the game really become reality?”

“Who cares — let me just try it! This game is so boring anyway, the only interesting things are those Magic Cards!”

One month after the game’s launch.

The popularity of 《Holographic Game: Apocalypse Descends》 had not diminished in the slightest. On the contrary, its persistent mysteriousness and groundbreaking experience attracted even more players flooding in.

A full month had passed, and still no individual, organization, or government agency had been able to identify the true identity of the so-called “company” or “team” behind the game.

The official website’s technical architecture was impossible to analyze. The logistics chain that had distributed the helmets was untraceable. Even the promotional videos, which looked incredibly realistic, bore no traces of any known film special effects company or engine.

This thoroughly ignited speculation and unease on a global scale.

Conspiracy theories ran rampant:

“This is a brand-new military training system secretly developed by some major power, designed to screen and train super soldiers!”

“It’s a low-key contact from an extraterrestrial civilization! The game is a tool for testing our civilization’s adaptability and potential!”

“It’s not a game at all — it’s a rehearsal for an imminent ‘augmented reality event’! That novel on the official forum is actually nonfiction!”

…