NOVPUBMurphy, who had logged out of the forum, wiped his nostrils with a handkerchief. Even though he had awakened from a three-hour coma, blood was still seeping from under his nostrils. The vampire lord felt like his brain had separated from his skull and didn’t dare shake his head, as any movement caused his brain to ache.
If he had to describe it, it felt like being hit in the face with a club, and his eyes were still bloodshot, making everything appear covered in a thin layer of blood.
Murphy felt this definitely counted as a “work injury,” and he was still working while injured to handle player feedback. Where else in the world could you find such a dedicated administrator?
Fortunately, the administrator system’s “self-cleaning program” had completed, and the inability to activate the Omega antivirus process indicated that all contamination left in his body by the subspace evil thoughts had been cleaned out. This gave Murphy some comfort in his painful reality.
Thank goodness I had a cheat!
Otherwise, that wave of being gazed upon by the subspace shadow called “Original Sin” would probably have caused serious injury.
However, setting aside this subspace shadow whose true name he had just learned, Murphy had an urgent matter to deal with.
He waved off Femis, who was looking at him worriedly, refusing the cup of blood she offered, and said softly:
“I’m fine now, don’t worry, Young Lady, that was just a ‘technical adjustment’.”
“You really scared me earlier.”
Femis cast a life detection spell on Murphy while leaning on her Night Howl Staff. The feedback showed Murphy’s condition was acceptable, which finally put the Young Lady at ease.
She was very clear about Murphy’s current importance to both Transia and the Blood Vulture Clan. If nothing else, if Murphy were to suddenly die here, just dealing with an enraged Tris would be quite troublesome.
Especially after Femis learned that the divine abomination known as the “Midnight Mother” was originally prepared as Tris’s “path to godhood,” she had fully realized the “supreme potential” Tris possessed.
It was like a time bomb that could explode at any moment.
“I won’t ask about the source of your unique purifying spirit power, nor will I ask where you obtained such a ‘gift’. I only have one question. Murphy, are you certain that everything that happened earlier was normal?”
The Young Lady asked very seriously.
Murphy rubbed his brow and nodded, saying briefly:
“You can understand it as power I obtained after a certain adventure, specifically for countering subspace evil beings. I’m not very clear about how it works, but if your mother planned to use subspace’s filthy power to force you to submit, then we can now declare all her tricks have failed.
But as you can see, I need rest now.
So could you please go check on the situation at the merchant caravan battlefield in my place? I must ensure the Carpe family’s caravan is safe and sound, as it’s very important for our territory’s future.”
“I need to ensure you won’t be in danger, to avoid being flayed alive by Tris when I return. You must understand, Murphy, this is for my personal safety.”
The Young Lady refused this proposal, but Murphy beckoned, and Necessary Evil came whistling over from somewhere, circling around Murphy twice before hovering obediently beside the lord, along with Blood Vulture Spirit Revnor and Astral Direwolf George emerging from starlight.
Murphy used this to show the Young Lady that he was safe now.
Actions speak louder than words.
Although Femis was still worried, she ultimately couldn’t refuse Murphy’s request and spread her wings to fly toward the distant border battlefield.
After Femis left, Murphy picked up the core bead again. Just as he connected to Tris’s communication, the monster girl’s scolding rang in his ears:
“What were you doing earlier? Why did the three observation spells I placed on you suddenly fail? Did you sneak off to do something dangerous again? And what’s going on with your little player?
Why did he get involved in the Embrace matter?
Their projection forms at current strength cannot maintain blood contracts, which forced me to temporarily find those bewildering terms from the forum to muddle through.
Fortunately, I’ve been studying their literary art all this time.”
“I just did what I had to do. Your guess was correct, Lady Cecilia is very dangerous. She has been confirmed as a vessel for some subspace shadow in the material world.”
Murphy said gravely:
“She can also summon contaminated individuals from subspace into the material world. Fortunately I kept an ace up my sleeve, otherwise everyone we sent here tonight would have failed. I’m fine now, so let’s discuss this matter later.
I want to ask you, Joy Stick said he dreamed about the life story of the descendant he just signed a blood contract with in another world. Is this normal for vampires?
Could it have physiological effects on my warrior?”
“You really care about them, look at what state you’re in yourself.”
Tris complained, then explained:
“No, it won’t. That kind of memory-level glimpse is just some ‘echoes’ that come with the Embrace itself, just like how we always bring back some ‘other things’ when seizing power from enemy vampire hearts.
When the Embrace is completed, the two vampire individuals being connected on an existential level will inevitably cause both parties to be influenced by each other.
Plus your warrior is weaker than Melia Korando, which caused him, despite being the one conducting the Embrace, to be influenced by his descendant instead, but being able to dream of their life story is already the limit of this influence.
You have to understand, Murphy, their form of existence in our world is just a projection.
Their physical bodies have never come here, and the vast distance between the two worlds is a gap that only deities can measure, which is enough to leave 99% of the ‘bad stuff’ on our side, so it can be said this itself is the best ‘protection’ fate has given to your warriors.
My suggestion for him not to return to Transia for at least 7 days wasn’t said casually, this is the ‘standard procedure’ vampires use to handle such situations.
No matter what he obtained from the other party during the Embrace, 7 days is enough time for this purely mental influence to completely dissipate.
But I think this is actually an opportunity.”
“Hmm, you’re right, this is indeed an opportunity.”
Only after hearing Tris confirm that the dangerous Embrace that bastard Joy Stick recklessly performed wouldn’t harm his physical body did Murphy breathe a sigh of relief, and he almost immediately understood what Tris meant by “opportunity.”
The vampire lord leaned against this quiet mountainside, gazing at the dark sky without stars or moon above. He closed his eyes feeling the night wind blow through his hair and said softly:
“I hadn’t planned to open the blood contract function for vampire players, but since now there’s a fearless ‘warrior’ who bravely took the first step, we might as well start the gameplay testing of the ‘blood contract’ function early.
Let’s use Joy Stick and Melia Korando as ‘observation samples’!
After confirming this ‘twin’ mode won’t cause further effects on players’ minds over a long enough time period, we can open this dangerous game mode to them.
But I still have a question, Tris. Given players’ form of existence, they shouldn’t have been able to complete the blood contract ritual, they don’t even have blood in them.”
“No, they do!”
Tris reminded:
“Don’t forget, when the first batch of vampire players underwent the Embrace, you and Maxim specifically gave their spirit projections one drop of blood for the ritual’s sake. Although it’s just one drop.
But in terms of the essential ‘blood exchange’ element required for the Embrace and blood contract on a symbolic level, it’s actually enough. I’ve carefully analyzed the whole process of Joy Stick and Melia Korando’s blood contract being established.
He completed the ritual using that drop of blood you gave him, then gifted his projection’s life force to Melia, pulling that Wolfsbane kid back from death’s door.
But he didn’t know how to control the intensity of life force gifting, which directly led to him being ‘drained’ to death by the dying Melia.
Although this process is completely different from traditional blood contracts, if you analyze it carefully, you’ll find it has almost all the symbolic elements that an Embrace should have.
So theoretically speaking, this blood contract has been established.
It’s just that your players are completely different from all life forms I’ve seen, so whether Melia’s contract has anything in common with other vampires’ blood contracts will have to be observed gradually later.
I will push this forward, you don’t need to intervene.
Before getting detailed observation reports, you’d better not let other vampire players try this dangerous operation.
I can’t ensure everyone will be as lucky as Joy Stick in completing the contract.”
“Mm, I will.”
Murphy nodded, then asked puzzledly:
“But where did you go earlier? Femis said she sent you several messages requesting help but got no response, were you drunk again?”
“Uh, just assume I was drunk.”
In the Blood Vulture Halls, Tris rubbed her slowly healing shoulder wound, and glanced at the burnt elaborate corpse being dissected before her.
She didn’t plan to let Murphy know that she had just fought with “Source” on an island in the frozen Northern Sea beyond Ice Bay and destroyed one of their “Blood Servant vessels” used to carry consciousness, so she grimaced but maintained a steady tone saying:
“This good wine is harmful, I’ll try to drink less in the future.”
“Oh, you’ve really changed your ways today.”
——
“That’s how it is, I can’t play the game for the next 7 damn days. Sigh, if I had known I wouldn’t have exploited that BUG! Nothing would have happened if I had just turned back when encountering the maze spell. I’m telling you all to learn from this.”
At this time on the forum, a frustrated Joy Stick opened a separate thread and posted about the mess he and Meow King encountered earlier.
Because the process was bizarre enough and the outcome shocking enough, plus with the screenshot from his and Meow King’s game helmets showing “login permissions banned due to accidental factors” adding credibility, it quickly attracted many players and drama seekers’ curiosity.
Mainly because this was the first time something like this had happened in 《Reality Realm》.
Although veteran players more or less knew about or had personally witnessed certain BUGs in the game, for new players, they really found it hard to imagine that with Alpha development team’s alien technology level, they could actually produce this kind of “malignant BUG.”
Feel You Poor:【So, Brother Stick, you really dreamed about a female vampire’s entire life? Damn, that sounds so creepy, are you sure it was just due to interfering with incomplete function testing causing the game helmet to give incorrect brainwave interference?
I feel like you might be possessed or something.】
Onboard Joy Stick:【Tsk tsk tsk, children’s words bring bad luck, how can this be called possession? Brother Alpha gave me a long explanation of scientific principles I couldn’t understand, anyway it sounded very reasonable, and I’m planning to go get a medical checkup and then find a efficacious temple to pray at.
To be honest, besides the dream, I don’t feel anything else different about myself.】
Scholar Xiao Zhou:【So, Brother Stick accidentally got the first example of the blood contract gameplay? Doesn’t this mean you became the first player vampire to have a descendant in the game?
Damn!
Isn’t this awesome!
Just from what we’ve seen of vampires’ control over their descendants, can’t you just do whatever you want?】
Meow King:【What use is it, our dicks don’t even belong to us anymore, what can this cyber eunuch do? What is he capable of? Sigh, some things are better not having than having but not being able to use.
sideways_smile.jpg】
Onboard Joy Stick:【Damn! Say less, Brother Alpha also said those two NPCs’ storylines might BUG due to my accidental intervention, so quests related to them might be permanently deleted.
To be honest, I feel a bit guilty. Those two girls are quite pitiful honestly.
If what I saw in my dream is true, then they can hardly be called bad people, but because of my meddling they’re both going to be finished.】
Terra Nova:【Look on the bright side, Brother Stick! According to what you said in your post, if you hadn’t saved her then, that vampire called Melia would have died on the spot.
Plus the development team still needs to evaluate, right? They might not necessarily delete it.
Based on my shallow understanding of test engineering, I estimate there’s a decent chance the development team will keep these two samples for observing the blood contract function when it’s opened to players later, so if you’re lucky enough, you might still keep your descendant, but I guess the development team might put some restrictions on you.
But how to say it, this is also a unique experience right.
Ah, I really want a helmet, hearing you all talk about these things makes me more and more fascinated, I didn’t believe it was real before.】
Joy Stick chuckled and was about to reply to this brother’s sentiments when he heard the doorbell.
He took off his game helmet in surprise and got up to walk to the door, looking outside through the peephole to see several people in formal attire standing there.
This made Brother Stick feel a bit confused. He opened the door a crack to look out, and saw a formally dressed short-haired glasses girl at the front who gave him a gentle smile, then took out a credential from her chest and opened it before his eyes.
Brother Stick looked carefully.
Damn!
Isn’t that Alpha Company’s logo?
“Hello, test personnel codename ‘Onboard Joy Stick’, we are Alpha Company Medical Group’s external specialists, commissioned by the Test Group to conduct physical examination and psychological evaluation after your brainwave interference incident.”
The girl pointed at the medical equipment carried by several people behind her and said naturally:
“Don’t worry, the examination will be completed quickly. Please understand that our company needs to evaluate all test personnel’s physical and mental health to ensure your quality of life.”
“???”
Joy Stick’s eyes widened.
He did know from chatting with Brother Alpha earlier that Alpha Company had dedicated medical and hardware groups, but he hadn’t expected that the “BUG” he caused would bring Alpha Company’s operations personnel.
But you have to say, this company is really professional, they even have dedicated staff providing door-to-door service.
“Good good good, come in first and we’ll talk.”
Joy Stick opened the door to welcome the several people into his apartment.
He didn’t doubt these people’s identities, after all he had only complained about his encounter on the forum, other unrelated people had no way to know about these things.
Perhaps this really was “player welfare” specially arranged by Brother Alpha.
Meanwhile, in an office somewhere else, the player with ID codename “Border Town Wanderer” worriedly accompanied his superior “Brother Loyalty” while observing the situation in Joy Stick’s home being examined through a pinhole camera.
The mature and steady Brother Wanderer said softly:
“Isn’t this a bit too risky? Team Leader, we still can’t figure out what their angle is, isn’t it too hasty to send people disguised to visit them? Won’t it provoke hostility?”
“This is necessary!”
Brother Loyalty sat in his chair with fingers interlocked, looking very serious.
He said:
“All previous interactions happened in that virtual reality scene, codename ‘Alpha’ didn’t try to interfere with our side, but this time Joy Stick’s ‘supernatural phenomenon’ could affect citizen safety on the small scale, and could be understood as Alpha’s first attempt to interfere with the real world through technical means on the large scale.
I also know the risks of doing this, but we must ensure the safety of personnel under observation!
This is our duty.
As for how Alpha’s side will react.
We’ll take it one step at a time!
Perhaps this is an opportunity, maybe both sides can truly develop some level of tacit cooperation through this.”
