Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Countless players tightly followed this gigantic creature, persistently chasing it through the billowing dust.

Since the update of “Paradise”, the flow of people on Dinosaur Island has exploded with the official opening of Jurassic Park.

Although the [Dinosaur Island Conqueror] achievement was discontinued, [Behemoth Slayer] and [Ancestor’s Glory] still remain.

Every time a giant dinosaur is discovered by a player, it causes a small trend, drawing a large number of players to join in on the achievement.

According to Cloud Dream’s rules, as long as you attack the dinosaur, even if you just throw a small stone at it, you’ll get the corresponding [Behemoth Slayer] achievement when the dinosaur falls.

However, since there are too many participating players, many giant dinosaurs have been killed to extinction. Some players wait every day in areas where giant dinosaurs have previously appeared, waiting for them to respawn.

Every respawn is a call to friends and allies.

This unprecedentedly massive Brittle Bicameral Dragon, 15 meters tall and 50 meters long, undoubtedly caused an unparalleled craze.

Countless players stood on both sides of the road where the dinosaur was passing, holding various weapons in their hands, waiting for the Brittle Bicameral Dragon to pass by.

As the dinosaur approached, stones, wood, spears, and ammunition from the “Dinosaur Treasure” hand cannon including tranquilizer darts, rubber bullets, and electric shock darts, were scattered and rained down on it.

The damage was probably equivalent to a mosquito bite.

If Cloud Dream were to display damage numbers, there would undoubtedly be a dense cluster of “-1,” “-1,” “-1″…

However, as the saying goes, “ants can bite an elephant to death,” and more and more players joined in the pursuit. No one gave up until the dinosaur collapsed, dead or alive, they would keep coming back.

This continuous influx of reinforcements leaves the Brittle Bicameral Dragon with no time to rest, forcing it to keep running until its strength is exhausted, and it falls heavily to the ground.

This also marks the beginning of the end of its life.

Some players approached and attacked its head – not just anyone can do this job.

Long-range attacks can be done by anyone.

But using cold weapons to end the life of a large animal at close range truly requires some mental preparation.

Hu, who had already inflicted damage, now stood inconspicuously in the crowd, not participating in the final kill.

The instant the Brittle Bicameral Dragon died, the achievement trophy’s glow flickered in front of everyone.

Because it was so concentrated, Cloud Dream’s corresponding mechanism also dimmed all the glows.

But Hu was the exception.

A golden, bright, dazzling light, like sunlight, suddenly lit up in the crowd.

In just an instant, everyone realized—this was definitely a different, rarer achievement!

With a little more thought, they quickly realized: [Ancestor’s Glory] has been completed!

Everyone simultaneously stopped what they were doing and looked at Hu with burning eyes.

This was the first person to complete the notoriously difficult achievement!

And what would the reward be?

Hu, for now, couldn’t care about the gaze of others and just stared at the trophy in his hand.

There was no doubt that the main material of this trophy was the rarest diamond, and Cloud Dream even added special effects to the trophy!

Ten large dinosaurs Hu participated in hunting were scaled down proportionally to tiny ones, each shimmering “bling bling,” chasing and playing with each other in a spherical area, occasionally piling in a bunch.

It looked really high-end at a glance!

As for the rewards

[Conquer! Tame! Your prowess has conquered these terrifying prehistoric creatures, and they have chosen to entrust their offspring to you.]

[Dinosaur Summoner: You can summon giant dinosaur hatchlings that have been conquered by you to accompany you in your happy times. (Note: Dinosaur hatchlings have no combat power, please do not attempt to make them fight.)]

“Pets!!”

“And summoned at will! So generous!?” Hu was a little surprised.

In his impression, no, actually in the impression of most players, Lincoln and Cloud Dream were very generous to players in reality, but they were extremely stingy in the virtual world.

Giving something valuable seemed like it was costing Lincoln his life.

This was completely different from traditional game vendors – traditional game vendors were stingy in reality but would give away virtual items in the game for free.

But this time, Cloud Dream actually gave away ten pets at once?

Hu had every reason to be shocked!

He reached out and tapped the “conquered” Brittle Bicameral Dragon on the trophy.

As his finger touched it, the crystal dinosaur emitted light, which then naturally converged and transformed into a hatchling that was shorter than his arm.

As soon as the hatchling landed, it affectionately ran to Hu’s feet, rubbed against his leg, and bit his shoe.

But Hu couldn’t care less about that; he was too busy staring at the little dinosaur in amazement.

This little dinosaur looked much cuter and rounder than its “dad” – or maybe it was the mom; Hu couldn’t tell the sex of dinosaurs.

Hu reached out and touched the hatchling, finding its skin soft and smooth, even its neatly arranged teeth had gentle lines when he picked it up.

Overall, it even seemed a bit unreal.

Hu looked at the little dinosaur, then back to the dead Brittle Bicameral Dragon, which by now had piled up into a small mountain, he couldn’t help but blurt out, “You’re not its biological child, are you?! Your styles are totally different!”

One was realistic, and the other cartoonish—how could they be from the same family?!

As the little dinosaur got close enough to Hu’s face, a faint light converged once more, and a palm-sized card appeared in its mouth.

The little dinosaur held the card and handed it to Hu.

Hu held the little dinosaur with one hand and took the card with the other to look at it.

The card was pure black with no information on it, but a system prompt popped up—

[A mysterious invitation, it seems the time to open it has not yet arrived.]

After examining it over and over again but still unable to make sense of it, Hu had no choice but to put it away for now.

Players from the surrounding crowd couldn’t help but gather around, asking:

“What reward? What reward?”

“A baby dinosaur as a reward?! That’s awesome!”

“So cute, can I hold it, please?”

Hu couldn’t handle the barrage of questions, so he quickly lifted the trophy up and shared the system’s information, allowing everyone to see.

He then tried to summon the other nine pets to entertain the group.

However, when he reached out his finger and tapped a Crystal Wind God Wyvern, it appeared, but the baby dinosaur that a female player was holding in her arms vanished instantly.

“We can only summon one at a time, huh…” Hu sighed speechlessly.

“Well, we should’ve seen this coming. This is Cloud Dream’s style, being stingy wherever possible…”

The onlookers were speechless too, but they were used to Cloud Dream’s stinginess in the virtual world. They quickly accepted it and begged Hu to summon different baby dinosaurs one after the other so everyone could see what they looked like.

This was necessary, as baby dinosaurs had completely different appearances from adult dinosaurs, so you couldn’t deduce what the babies looked like based on the adults.

After a long time and another round of Hu gaining unexpected fame online, the crowd slowly dispersed.

From today, the number of players hunting down massive dinosaurs began to grow rapidly once again.

After all, these were dinosaur pets!

Especially since Hu had already verified that these dinosaurs could not only follow players into amusement parks but also enter the public versions of Metropolis and Night City.

The level of enthusiasm among players skyrocketed!

On Dinosaur Island, the true doomsday for giant dinosaurs… had arrived.

Even many players had sneakily targeted the large performance dinosaurs kept in Jurassic Park…

Lincoln, busy all day… well, half a day, no, more like three hours, finally returned home early.

After finishing dinner, he laid down on the small sofa in the Spaceship as usual. Lazily asking Mavis if there were any interesting things happening.

Mavis flipped him over, sat cross-legged on his back, and began to massage him comfortably.

However, the words coming out of Mavis’ mouth weren’t so harmonious, “Oh, there’s something! A mysterious suicide case in Jurassic Park!”

“What the heck?” Lincoln was surprised and instinctively turned over to inquire.

“Ouch!” Mavis, leaning on the sofa’s backrest, slapped Lincoln discontentedly. “Don’t move around!”

“Okay, fine.” Lincoln obediently lay back down. “So, what happened?”

Upon hearing “suicide case,” Lincoln couldn’t help but be shocked and concerned. However, seeing Mavis’ unconcerned expression, he realized that things were probably different from what he imagined, and he was already reassured.

The video Mavis showed him afterward confirmed his suspicions—

In the video, the Jurassic Park’s regular show: feeding a shark to a Canglong was being performed.

However, several people suddenly jumped from the stands into the water, drew their swords from their canes, and charged at the Canglong!

After evading their attacks underwater, the Canglong killed them one by one. Two of the unfortunate ones even suffocated to death.

In the virtual world, players wouldn’t experience severe suffocation, just a slight difficulty in breathing.

However, in an asphyxiating environment, the system would display an oxygen bar. Once it ran out, the player would die.

These people indeed died tragically, but the spectators in the stands thought it was a special performance, clapping and cheering loudly.

After all, everyone knew this was a virtual world. Someone dying wasn’t a big deal.

It just looked somewhat heartbreaking…

The next video had a different target: the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Moving from underwater to land, the players’ movements were significantly more fluid.

With five people sacrificing themselves, the Tyrannosaurus Rex suffered heavy damage and fell to the ground, unable to get back up.

The spectators in the stands began shouting “No!”

But at that moment, Jurassic Park’s security team appeared…

“Bang bang bang,” a round of bullets fired, and everyone was hit with tranquilizer darts. The security team entered, grabbing the players by their feet and removing them from the scene.

Afterward, there were similar incidents involving Thunder Dragons, Liang Dragons, and Tide Dragons…

That day, the tourists in Jurassic Park had a visual feast, enjoying a lot of special performances.

“What were these people thinking?” Lincoln didn’t understand.

“Ancestors’ Glory was completed by Hu!” Mavis revealed the answer, “Many people know about the baby dinosaur reward now, so they all want one.”

“Oh,” Lincoln understood, nodding, “So Hu received the invitation too, right?”

“Yep,” Mavis nodded happily but soon looked uncertain, “But Master, is it going too far to use an invitation to a game that hasn’t even been launched yet as a reward…”

“No way!” Lincoln immediately objected, “If I don’t say, and Mavis doesn’t say, who would know?”

“By the time they find out, the game will have started testing, and they’ll be too excited to care!”

This invitation was an Easter egg Lincoln had specifically set for AR technology’s conceptual reality-augmented game. The earliest idea for AR Classic of Mountains and Seas.

Why did Hu feel like the baby dinosaurs and adult dinosaurs were of different styles?

Because the baby dinosaurs didn’t come from Paradise’s style, but the style of that imagined, AR pet battle game.

Although this game didn’t even have a project launch yet…

So whether this was an empty promise or a surprise Easter egg was up for debate…