001. Descend

"What a hassle, disconnected again."

As the dim vision gradually faded away, Li Zi sighed and instinctively rubbed his forehead, muttering complaints:

"I should've set up the livestreaming with my studio using a dedicated line. The 1 Gbps broadband in this rented apartment is just too unstable. Every time the viewership exceeds 100,000, it starts fluctuating."

Being a full-time streamer is not an easy job, even as a streamer for the current hottest all-round game "Starry Abyss." Despite the huge traffic, only a few have truly made money from live streaming.

"I still need 200 more hours of streaming this month. Ugh, the disconnection and reconnection took two hours. I have to restart the streaming plugins again. Looks like I'll be pulling another all-nighter."

"Starry Abyss" is great in every way, except that it's really hard to be compatible with various livestream plugins that are updated day by day, sometimes they don't work at all.

No matter if it's Kuaiyin, Douhand, Tigerfish, or Bilihilih, all streaming plugins are treated equally by the "Starry Abyss" game system, with network crashes being almost a daily occurrence.

Li Zi had invested everything he had into his streaming setup for a long time, which eventually brought some achievement to his career.

The game pod should be syncing with his neural link now, synchronizing his consciousness and data. This is an extremely lengthy process. On normal days, it wouldn't matter, but for Li Zi, this was the peak time for his livestream. Missing this time slot would significantly reduce his traffic.

The passion that he had when he first entered the game had gradually faded with his professionalization. Sometimes Li Zi also thought about going back to a few summers ago, where he and his friends would play together without any worries.

With increasing life pressures, many people gradually stopped playing games and turned to reading novels and watching short videos. Even Li Zi couldn't guarantee if he still had the same love for "Starry Abyss" if not for the streaming career.

"Neural link of four limbs, touch template activated."

As the neural link activated, Li Zi no longer thought about those things.

Emphasizing immersion, "Starry Abyss" rarely had visual effects like a game interface. During the loading process, there was no prompt but a gradual release of sensations, continuously stimulating players to adapt to entering the game.

That's why every time a network fluctuation caused a disconnection, the reconnection would take a long time.

Li Zi was anxious, but he could only follow the game's process at this moment.

As a veteran player of "Starry Abyss" and an ace bro of the Meteor Fall Master occupation, he quickly adjusted his mentality, calming down rapidly and accurately following the tips provided by the official to accelerate the neural link.

"Empty your mind, gradually sense your body."

"Start with the fingers, continuously try to move them."

"Keep in mind the feeling of the airflow brushing against your skin, continuously think and strengthen your understanding of it."

This technique had always been effective. From the vast void, his senses became increasingly sharp and realistic.

The warmth of the sunlight, the discomfort from the clothes, the stinging pain of the wound on his forehead, the blood gushing out after the blood vessel ruptured…

"Huh? What's going on? Sunlight? Wound? Ill-fitting clothes?"

Li Zi was a bit surprised. He clearly remembered that before disconnecting, he was exploring the high-risk map "Abyssal Garden," where it was dark all the time without any sunlight.

But it might be that the system's logout protection had transported him to a nearby human colony planet. Since there was sunlight, it was probably the artificial sun of "Valkyrie Fortress."

The wound could also make sense, possibly due to other players attacking him. After all, he was a somewhat well-known streamer. It was normal for fans to want to interact when they passed by.

What truly puzzled Li Zi was the ill-fitting clothes on his body.

This was absolutely impossible.

His set of "Silver Dream" robes was custom made from Void Dragon Skin, it couldn't be ill-fitting like a mage wearing a warrior's armor.

Moreover, the texture of the clothes on his body was entirely different from the soft and comfortable robe he remembered. It felt more like the poor-quality chemical fiber materials he wore in the early days in the newbie village.

'This is weird. Are the water friends playing a prank on me?'

As his body and consciousness gradually synced, Li Zi's vision was blurry, but he basically gained control over his body. He immediately noticed that he seemed to be sitting paralyzed on the ground, with some heavy object pressing on him, vaguely looking like a humanoid figure.

Without further thought, Li Zi instinctively tried to push it away. As a level 300 Meteor Fall Master, although strength wasn't his main attribute, with absolute level crushing, he could easily push away a 'Magellan' class interstellar warship.

However, when his hand touched the humanoid figure, the weak and powerless hand barely exerted any force, feeling a slight pain. The heavy obstruction caused his face to stiffen.

"What's going on? Did I get hit with the 'Weakness' debuff after being killed six times in a row?"

Li Zi frowned. His chest and abdomen were just pressed by the humanoid figure, making it difficult to breathe. If this continued, he would fall into a 'suffocation' state.

He had to struggle hard, shaking his body for a long time before finally pushing the humanoid figure off of himself.

Thud.

The humanoid figure landed flat on its back. Li Zi sat up, glanced at it, and the neural link had just completed the synchronization at this moment. His pupils focused, quickly capturing the appearance of the other.

White male, tall and sturdy, wearing a light blue security guard uniform, with no signs of life. The name tag on his chest read "Lanny Johns."

"What era are we in that people still wear traditional textile clothing? This stuff is from before the Interstellar Era. Even the beta version didn't have this stuff."

Li Zi mumbled to himself, it was just a corpse, nothing to feel psychologically pressured about.

Back then, he crawled out of and back into the bloodbath of the "Demon Academy" at least 999 times, if not a thousand.

He looked down at his own outfit: the same light blue security guard uniform, equipped with a flashlight at his waist. Meanwhile, there were bloodstains on his forehead and cheeks—he reached out to touch, apparently having a cut on his forehead, with some shallow bleeding, but nothing serious.

"Not only hit with 'Weakness,' but I'm also thrown into who knows which newbie planet. Who's making this prank?"

Li Zi unceremoniously tore off the clothes from the security guard's body to stop his own bleeding and conveniently took the rubber baton from the other's waist as a weapon.

"Who knows where I've been thrown. I need to find a mirror quickly and activate the system."

Li Zi muttered as he moved quickly, but as soon as he started, he immediately realized something was wrong.

He turned around, squinted his eyes under the afternoon sun, and looked carefully at the security guard's corpse, focusing his gaze on the name tag.

"Lanny Johns, no wonder it looks familiar. It's in the Azure Star language."

Li Zi paused for a moment, then his pupils contracted:

"This is the language of the Fiery Summer Country's player newbie planet—Azure Star, from version 1.0 to 2.0."

"Are you kidding me? Azure Star was bombed by the Galaxy Civilization in version 2.5!"

"Five years ago, I saw the explosion of Azure Star with my own eyes. Over 50,000 people in my livestream witnessed the shocking scene together, where the planet shattered, the earth caved in, and under the main cannon of the 'Dallas' starship, it slowly melted into magma. The civilization was annihilated in flames and radiation. Eventually, the entire planet broke into fragments, swallowed and merged by the massive star…"

"The key point is, Azure Star was blown up by me, TMD!"