Earth's Best Gamer

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

Ji Ye returned to his room and logged onto the official forum again. His IP address directly took him to Yang City's sub-forum, where he saw a highlighted post that had more view counts than any other.

[The first stream in Yang City recorded! "Crossgod" versus Black Serpent. Don't miss out!]

"Crossgod…?"

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The title seemed weird, though he didn't mind it too much.

He could see that it was referring to his mission. But he couldn't understand how somebody managed to "record" his stream. As far as he knew, viewers could only watch him through their own eyes; there would be no means of filming it.

He clicked the post to read and finally saw what was going on. It wasn't actual footage of him; it was a short animation created by a game company, based on the stories told by the viewers.

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Now this is a lot more doable.

After a careful look, however, he noticed that the animation was not so reliable, because it was more like an advertisement of the game company rather than an accurate illustration of his battle.

The creator of the video used a game character to represent this "Crossgod," who looked too shiny to be considered normal. And that white skin and nicely-trimmed facial features… The man looked more like a transgender, not a warrior.

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Although, no one could say no to the design since nobody knew what he truly looked like. In this case, to choose a fantasy style was appealing to a lot of people with the right taste, especially women.

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Ji Ye felt a bit frustrated because this video alone had more views than all of his survival videos combined.

"His eyes! Look at his eyes! So cool and shiny!"

"Is that how Crossgod really looks?"

"Sh*t, that snake looks wicked. But my papa nailed it!"

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"Nice vid. Too short though."

By assessing the comments, one could see that the moderators made no attempt of forbidding people from talking about the stream, which was understandable, because being too secretive might instead raise too much suspicion.

Reading the comments was fine at first. But then Ji Ye began to get a strange feeling, especially when looking at the moniker "Crossgod."

His privacy remained safe thanks to the confederation office, even though hundreds of thousands of netizens in Yang City tried digging for his information.

Without anything useful to go by, people had to give him some really flashy names. And some of them didn't look nice.

The first group of streamers were exposed to the public when privacy affairs were not yet brought to attention. At the moment, those people had become more famous than the best movie actors. Rather, even movie stars wanted to cooperate with them to produce movies based on their adventures.

Ji Ye agreed to accept the "privacy policy" because he didn't really care about becoming famous or not.

Right then, however, he made up his mind about never telling his name to the general public.

He called Ling Chen and asked whether they could ask the forum to take the video down, using authorization issues as an excuse.

Next, he went to the "Settlement" section of the forum to check if anything was worth noting down.

Nine days had elapsed since the settlement mission was announced to all players. The mission was difficult. But there were still a few players who managed to clear it, either alone or by relying on extra assistance.

Naturally, more information about those human settlements were being updated on the forum.

For example, a player from the western continent discovered a mountain village, from where he successfully summoned a hero to join him. That hero claimed that he had graduated from a wizardry school where people loved keeping owls as their pets. Also, there was a famous senior student in that school named "Harry."

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Another player told how he was disappointed to find a group of cavemen at first. He was later greatly surprised to find that those seemingly uncivilized folks could each fight off a tiger with their bare hands.

Then there was another player who had summoned a freak who could freely control metals…

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The settlement being discussed the most was the "Ren Hamlet," which Ji Ye recognized. Apparently, the confederation government was trying to restrict relevant information about this settlement at first, but that player chose to disclose everything on the forum, including how he had become Ninth Uncle's apprentice.

As anticipated, this had aroused some heated discussion.

"How lucky can he get?? Being admitted by the legendary Ninth Uncle. He can learn Maoshan Taoism arts now, right?"

"I heard about that before. Just like the Kung Fu arts used by Bruce Lee, eh?"

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"Hey, does anyone know if we can learn it in reality? Come on!"

This post was pinned at the top of the section due to all the popular movies centered around Ninth Uncle. When the confederation government was in its initial state, Chidragon had shipped a lot of native cultural products abroad to join the globalization movement, while Ninth Uncle's movies were a big part of the plan. This was why many foreigners also knew about this fictional exorcist.

The author of the post, a.k.a. the player who secured the Ren Hamlet also replied to the post with his latest plan. "Thank you for the support, everyone. I've successfully grasped the sorcery wielded by my teacher. I'm now a 'superior rank' player. Next, I'll go on an adventure with my teacher and eliminate all the ghosts and spirits haunting the fields!"

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"There are ghosts in the Land of Inheritance??"

"Hey, we got Ninth Uncle to take care of ghosts and whatnot. No worries."

"Yeah. I think Ninth Uncle's gotta be a lot stronger than the other summoned heroes."

"Extraordinary level, extraordinary powers! Man, I'm still at Ordinary Rank-7. If only I didn't die that day…"

Even other players seemed to be jealous of the poster. If the poster was speaking truthfully, then he had only been studying under Ninth Uncle for about a week. To be able to successfully cultivate a spell in such a short period of time, his aptitude was definitely not bad even if he were to train with EXP. This self-exposure undoubtedly made the overseas Chinese almost as popular as the players who had first appeared on the live broadcast—both domestically and internationally.

Following his lead, many players had brought the heroes they had summoned into discussions and figured out several interesting facts.

First and foremost, those heroes didn't necessarily follow the characters as described by their corresponding sources, namely books and stories. For example, a player summoned a scholar who had zero experience in combat as far as historical records were concerned. But it later turned out that the scholar could use a powerful spell in the Land of Inheritance, able to temporarily trap powerful monsters.

Upon further investigation, people found out that this scholar was an ancient lawmaker who had invented the prototype of prisons.

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Because of this, experts had discerned that the abilities of a summoned hero depended on the civilization he had been born in, but not his profession. A common laborer from an ancient and strong civilization was very likely to display potent capabilities. This also meant that even an average person in history could acquire extraordinary powers that matched their rank after "descending."

Of course, this wasn't proven in any way yet because no players had actually summoned any gods or influential people in history.

Also, the strength of summoned heroes could also be affected by their popularity, or in other words, how well they were known. This could explain why Lu Zhishen knew some powerful arts while his less-known comrades did not.

Lastly, experts had assumed that the "offering item" used for summoning a hero could cause a great impact on the result as well. If the civilizations did not differ too much, the offering items used in the process would determine how strong the heroes would be.

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Speaking of offering items, people had noticed that items tagged as "rare" were more likely to summon a hero who was completely irrelevant to the background of the settlement.

A western player had already proven this by using a rare offering item to summon an ancient warrior who came from the Qin Dynasty of Chidragon. And it was a disaster, since this player had zero knowledge in Chidragon culture; he had to take many arcane lessons first in order to successfully understand this warrior's lectures.

After noting down all the clues he could use, Ji Ye scrolled down the page and found another topic that caught his attention.

"Question: we already know that historical figures, including fictitious characters, can appear in the Land of Inheritance. So what about modern people? Say, if an important person died in real life, can we make them reappear as a hero too?"

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That got Ji Ye thinking.

Since he could use Rare Honor points to bring items and skills back to reality, would he be able to find tools or arts that resurrected the deceased, and recreate such an action in real life?

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He suddenly felt a new hope budding in his heart.