True Apocalypse Game

After grabbing some barbecue for dinner to clear his head, Shen Feng biked back to his rented apartment.

He first checked the state of the stone statue girl. After confirming that no residual Stone Statue Virus had reawakened and begun to spread, he finally sat down at his computer.

On his computer desktop was a blood-red eyeball icon, identical to the "True Apocalypse Game" icon on his wristband.

This wasn’t the same game, however.

This was the simulated-reality online game he had asked Jingwei to help develop.

Current virtual reality technology wasn’t mature enough and its adoption rate was relatively low, so Shen Feng had opted for a standard 3D game format.

But the content within was far more complex.

He clicked the desktop icon. A black screen appeared first, followed by a line of text:

"Welcome to the game. This is a first-person role-playing game in the sci-fi apocalypse genre.

Stage One Storyline initiated: Stone Statue Apocalypse.

Game Objectives: 1. Find the cause of the large-scale Petrification Disease outbreak. 2. Find Virus Zero. 3. Find the Stone Statue Disease Vaccine and survive."

The game character then woke up in an empty room, noticing a complete lack of sound from outside.

When the character went out to investigate, they were immediately met with streets full of motionless stone statues.

The main content of the game was almost entirely based on clues Shen Feng provided from his memories, recreating, to a certain extent, the Stone Statue Apocalypse he had once experienced.

It also had Skinners, but no Brain Apes.

Shen Feng had deliberately omitted them.

After all, the emergence of something like a Silicon-Based Brain would cause a massive upheaval for the entire world, possibly even triggering another apocalypse.

Human society, as it stood now, had not yet developed to the point where it could handle a leap in physical evolution.

Semi-silicon-based humans, possessing immense power, could be considered a type of superhuman.

Those who evolved first would inevitably separate themselves from unevolved humans, fracturing the entire human race and even starting wars just to protect their own special status.

Shen Feng had never underestimated the good in human nature, nor had he ever underestimated its evil.

Most importantly, he still had no idea how to recreate many of the concoctions he had haphazardly injected himself with back then, including the Pangu serum. It would require a long period of dedicated research to produce them again.

Of course, the Skinners from the Stone Statue Apocalypse were kept in the game.

The existence of the Skinners would serve as a warning to players to be extremely careful when developing the vaccine. Making a mistake would mean turning into one of them.

Compared to Shen Feng’s own experience in the Stone Statue Apocalypse, the game he and Jingwei created was much less difficult.

All players had to do was evade the Skinners, find their way to the Capital Epidemic Prevention Center building, bypass the access control, and retrieve the reagents and various data.

However, time had been tight. Despite having a host of powerful primary-level AIs working like child laborers on its development, the game’s current presentation was still a bit rough.

Shen Feng reviewed it carefully and offered some suggestions for improvement, directly extracting some of his memory data for Jingwei to reference for fine-tuning the details.

The number of Skinners was increased fivefold to raise the difficulty.

Furthermore, he had primary-level AIs like "Elf Kitten" and "Xiaomai" play the roles of Skinner leaders.

There was no point if it wasn’t challenging at all.

At the same time, Shen Feng added some new triggerable story events to test the deeper psychology of each player.

After he finished giving these suggestions, Shen Feng and Jingwei divided the labor. One began searching for a list of suitable players, while the other continued to adjust the game’s various plot structures and detailed settings.

By midnight, Shen Feng had already drafted a list of one hundred people from around the world. All were elites in the field of medicine, with over a dozen of them being Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine.

Every single one of them was a god-tier figure in the global medical community, possessing immense knowledge and the ability to mobilize vast resources.

Only they met the requirements for developing the Stone Statue Disease Vaccine.

As for their contact information, that was even simpler.

To Shen Feng, everyone’s phones and computers were practically defenseless. He could locate them with ease.

At twelve o’clock midnight, Jingwei reported that the game was ready and could be launched at any time.

Shen Feng clicked the game’s test icon again and immediately found that the graphics were far more detailed this time, looking almost like a live-action movie.

The overall plot progression was also more complex, requiring a bit of puzzle-solving to advance.

If he weren’t sitting at his computer with a mouse in hand, Shen Feng would have almost thought he had returned to the Stone Statue Apocalypse.

Logically, developing a top-tier 3D masterpiece like this would take the world’s best game companies several years, yet Jingwei and the low-level AIs had done it in just twelve hours. Her power was undeniable.

"Heh, using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. This is just an exquisite little toy. It’s a waste of my talents," Jingwei said pridefully.

Shen Feng laughed. "Of course. Robbing banks is more our style."

Jingwei had already entered the game herself. While slaughtering Skinners, she asked Shen Feng:

"By the way, what are you going to name this game?"

Shen Feng pondered for a moment, then said:

"Let’s still call it the True Apocalypse Game, but version 1.0. That will differentiate it from the True Apocalypse Game version 0.0 on my wristband."

Speaking of which, the content of the two True Apocalypse Games was similar in many ways.

The difference was that the True Apocalypse Game Shen Feng had experienced wasn’t a virtual game, but a real experience in a Parallel World.

After finishing all this and checking the courtyard hiding the missile launch vehicle via camera to confirm everything was fine, Shen Feng lay down on his bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Roaming around the digital world was quite draining. He was truly exhausted.

After the lights went out, only the sound of Shen Feng’s soft breathing filled the room. Moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating the face of the stone statue girl, creating a scene of profound tranquility...

* * *

The National Polar Research Center Building in Demon City was now under heavy guard.

The entire floor belonging to the Ice Dragon Expedition Team had been completely sealed off, and personnel from other floors had been evacuated and quarantined.

Li Tongchen walked down the hallway in a hazmat suit, his expression grim.

Just yesterday, several members of the Ice Dragon Expedition Team had suddenly developed symptoms of skin hardening and slowed neural responses, accompanied by mild arthritis.

At first, no one thought much of it. But they soon received internal intelligence from Eagle Country, and everyone immediately took it seriously, locking down the entire National Polar Research Center Building.

The team members’ families were also temporarily quarantined.

Although the Ice Dragon Expedition Team members currently only had mild symptoms, the news from Eagle Country was that many severely ill patients had already completely lost their mobility. Their cardiopulmonary functions were also declining, as if they were gradually turning into... a stone statue!

’A self-limiting acute hemorrhagic disease?’

Li Tongchen scoffed. As a leading expert in dermatology, he had treated thousands upon thousands of patients. He could tell with a single glance that this had absolutely nothing to do with any self-limiting acute hemorrhagic disease!

If he had to make a comparison, it was somewhat similar to wart-like skin conditions caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infections.

But the actual manifestations were worlds apart.

Right now, there was no way of knowing what the final outcome of this acute infectious skin disease would be.

Today, Li Tongchen was conducting routine examinations. After checking on the Ice Dragon Expedition Team members and several other suspected patients, he went through rigorous disinfection in the decontamination room, took a thorough shower, and only then left the quarantine zone.

Due to past national epidemics, the country was extremely experienced in containing acute infectious diseases. Its prevention and control mechanisms were arguably the strongest in the world.

After arriving at the lab, Li Tongchen began to observe the skin cells taken from the patients.

Although he had seen it many times, it still managed to surprise him every time.

Under the microscope, the skin cells appeared as an interwoven fibrous structure, filled with a large amount of crystalline material.

"Dr. Li, your phone is ringing," his assistant called from outside.

Li Tongchen ignored it and continued his experiment.

It wasn’t until lunchtime that he went through the decontamination procedure again, left the lab, and retrieved his phone from a storage locker.

CLICK... His elbow joint made a faint sound, but he paid it no mind. He unlocked his phone, and a blood-red eye icon immediately appeared, along with a line of text:

"True Apocalypse Game. Welcome."