Translator: AnubisTL
"Well, well, well..."
Scar Dog stepped through the phantom gate, immediately gripping his shotgun and scanning his surroundings with wary eyes.
But when he took in the room's interior, he froze in shock, his expression stunned.
That...
The room was roughly five meters high, five meters wide, and five meters long.
Yes, Li Hao had been right—it was a perfectly square chamber.
It looked like an oversized, square-shaped Wrigley's gum.
On the wall directly ahead, about twenty-five screens flickered rapidly through a series of images, all from a high, overhead perspective, like satellite views.
The images flashed by too quickly to linger on any one scene.
Yet even in that fleeting display, they caught a glimpse of the world tree.
This was the front wall, occupied solely by the screens.
The right wall, however, was dominated by a single massive display.
Spanning five meters in width and five meters in height, the screen filled the entire wall. Its black surface was emblazoned with white text.
The first line, like a title, read:
No. 088 Myriad Races Arena Activity Log.
Just a few words.
Below, it read like a diary, with dates, locations, and events.
[Cosmic Era, May 12th]: No. 088 Myriad Races Arena. Location selected: Nicholas Galaxy - XX-XX-XX - Mechlife Star.
[Cosmic Era, May 13th]: Modification begins. Mechlife Star's volume forcibly expanded thirtyfold. The planet's remaining lifespan is estimated to be less than a century.
[Cosmic Era, May 13th]: Modification complete. Added wilderness, mutated beasts, activity systems, achievement systems, etc.
[Cosmic Era, May 14th]: Received a legal notice from the Nicholas Galaxy's Red Sun Corporation. The copyright for the "Li Jingmei female voice" used in our event broadcasts belongs to Red Sun Corporation and has been deemed infringement. Compensation or purchase of usage rights is demanded.
Due to insufficient funds, the event broadcast voice has been automatically changed to the public domain "raspy mechanical voice," and 100,000 star coins have been paid to Red Sun Corporation as compensation.
[Cosmic Era, May 15th]: No. 088 Myriad Races Arena is fully constructed. We are now locating the pre-entered galactic coordinates for 100 wilderness planets.
[Cosmic Era, May 16th]: Location complete. Commencing...
[Cosmic Era, May 18th]: The primary races from 97 planets have successfully arrived at No. 088 Myriad Races Arena. The remaining 3 planets were incorrectly identified as wilderness worlds; they are actually planets within the EEDS Galaxy. The Nicholas Galaxy Federation has fined them 300,000 star coins.
[Cosmic Era, August 19th]: The race kill rankings have officially commenced.
[The Blood Sacrifice of the Ten Thousand Races event has begun.]
[The Mist Paradise Event has begun.]
[The Guardian the Kindling City Event has begun.]
The records stretched on, densely packed, up to the most recent "Ten-Thousand-Meter Vine" event.
There was also a unique log entry regarding the "Ten-Thousand-Meter Vine" event:
[Cosmic Era, August 26th]: Ape-man race player Suville designed the small-scale event "Ten-Thousand-Meter Vine." It has been registered in the Ten Thousand Races Arena's original event copyright library. Any other Ten Thousand Races Arena using the event must pay No. 088 Myriad Races Arena a copyright usage fee of 5,000 star coins per instance.
No further entries followed.
"It's over," Scar Dog sighed, his voice weary. "This Ten Thousand Races Arena was actually artificially constructed. It's unimaginable that they could directly transport the primary races from nearly a hundred planets to a single location."
"What kind of power would be required for this?"
Chen Jiang narrowed his eyes, observing the scene before him without speaking. He was pondering a crucial question:
What was the purpose of the Ten Thousand Races Arena?
Clearly, it wasn't for entertainment. The log explicitly stated a lack of funding. No one would spend such vast resources on mere amusement when facing financial constraints.
This strongly suggested that the Ten Thousand Races Arena served a vital, necessary purpose.
Everything exists for a reason.
And where did these items with miraculous abilities come from? Were they provided by the arena itself?
"Wait."
Chen Jiang's eyes narrowed further as he remained silent. He might have finally grasped the arena's true purpose.
He had noticed a small line of text in the log:
[The world origin of 97 planets has been absorbed and automatically converted into racial innate abilities. Race players from worlds with stronger world origin will receive a random personal innate ability.]
[The remaining world origin will be randomly channeled into the creation of various items.]
"As of today, 265 players have obtained rule items. Rule talents cannot be quantified."
What exactly are rule items?
The rabbit badge's absolute defense and the Gentleman's Cane's absolute stability are both examples of rule items, though they undoubtedly vary in strength.
"I understand now," Scar Dog said after a long pause, his expression darkening. "It seems the Ten Thousand Races Arena is using the world origin from our planets to randomly evolve items."
"Among these randomly evolved items, some become rule items. After the arena concludes, someone comes to collect all the rule items."
"It sounds like raising chickens for eggs," Li Hao remarked, pausing before adding, "But if that's the case, why doesn't the person behind the arena directly refine the world origin into rule items?"
"That's unknown."
"But what we do know is that these rule items must be highly valued by the arena, otherwise they wouldn't track them so meticulously."
Scar Dog paused before continuing, "However, it's likely the arena can't directly refine world origin into specific items they want. They can only use it as a catalyst."
Beside him, Zhao Ritian, lost in thought, suddenly ventured, "Like slaughtering us and turning our world origins into items to enhance their own power?"
"Enough. We don't have enough information to draw any conclusions yet," Chen Jiang said, shaking his head slightly. After a moment of silence, he continued, "At least we know this: rule-based items and rule-based talents are highly valued in the Ten Thousand Races Arena."
"The rest... we'll worry about it if we survive until the end of the arena."
"Don't worry too much. There's always a way forward."
In truth, Chen Jiang already had a rough guess, though he couldn't be certain.
The mechanical race, having survived the previous Ten Thousand Races Arena, had chosen to participate again, which suggested a compelling reason.
But one thing was clear: the Ten Thousand Races Arena served only as a catalyst. Their innate abilities and items didn't originate from the arena itself, but from their own planets' world sources.
The arena's true purpose was likely to strip them of these world origin-derived innate abilities and rule items.
After all, such things couldn't be manufactured.
"Brother Jiang, what if we reach the mountain and there's no road?"
"Then let's just blow up the mountain."
Meanwhile, in a place unknown to Chen Jiang,
at the entrance of a shop on another planet,
a woman in a dress, leading a child of about six or seven years old, smiled at a man nearby who was also holding a child. "Beibei's parent, are you here to buy an innate ability for your child too?"
"Yes, he's starting first grade this year. Without a decent innate ability, he won't even get into the elite class."
"Ah, tell me about it! Any halfway decent innate ability costs at least ten thousand star coins. And that's just for the slightly better ones. I can't imagine how much the really good ones cost—who could even afford them? And that's not even counting the items you need to buy on top of the innate ability."
"We just have to work hard, I guess. What else can we do? We can't let our kids fall behind right from the start, can we?"
"Exactly. Well, I'll head inside first, Beibei's parent."
"Go ahead. I'll wait here and have a smoke until Beibei's Mom gets here."
After a brief exchange of small talk,
the woman led her child into the shop with brisk steps.
As soon as they entered, they saw rows upon rows of shelves lining the walls, each divided into compartments. Inside each compartment sat a glass jar filled with a murky liquid, within which floated something that resembled a pig's brain.
A faint, slightly acrid odor hung in the air.
Beneath each glass jar was a small card with a few lines of text.
The woman, holding her child's hand, glanced at the text beneath each jar.
"Innate ability: Gluttony?"
"Hmm, no, that's too bad for my figure."
"Innate ability: Supreme Intelligence?"
"This seems promising. 8,000 star coins is acceptable, but the side effect is baldness?"
"Absolutely not! How could Yueyue, a girl, go bald?"
"Innate ability: Unrestrained Modification?"
"Eh, this one's a bit interesting."
The woman leaned closer to read the card more carefully. After scrutinizing the text, she shook her head in slight disappointment. "What 'unrestrained modification'? It's clearly 'unrestrained creation'! What kind of useless innate ability is this?"
She couldn't resist turning to the boss, who was sitting in a chair nearby. "Boss, all these innate abilities are garbage! And you're selling them at such high prices?"
"Think it's expensive?"
"I'm losing money on these! The wholesale price is already high. Take it or leave it. Want a good innate ability?"
"Sure!"
"As long as you pay the right price, I can get you an innate ability that can wipe out an entire planet. The question is, can you handle it?"
"You—!"
"You what? Don't buy it, then get lost!"
Meanwhile, inside the room, Chen Jiang and the others were staring at the western wall.
The wall displayed only a few lines of text:
[Next global event: Mutated Beast Horde]
[Event description: xxx]
[Time: Begins in 26 hours]
The next global event was the Mutated Beast Horde. Simply put, it involved killing mutated beasts to earn points, which could then be exchanged for rare items in the shop.
The event rules were largely the same as previous ones, except this time the objective was to kill mutated beasts instead of alien race players.
The problem was, they had noticed a significant decline in mutated beast sightings recently, barely encountering any at all.
Chen Jiang and the others stood before the wall, staring at the panel in complete silence, not a single word spoken.
After a long silence, Scar Dog finally spoke up: "Even if we survive until the end of the Ten Thousand Races Arena, can we withstand the hidden hand that might target us?"
Clearly, despite seeing the announcement for the next global event, none of them were paying much attention. Their minds were still preoccupied with the earlier incident.
"Yes," Chen Jiang replied calmly, pausing briefly before continuing, "Within the Ten Thousand Races Arena, the innate abilities and items that manifest are entirely random and uncontrollable. This means the arena itself is unaware of my unrestrained modification innate ability."
"If we can enhance the turret's caliber to three thousand meters—or even thirty thousand meters—before the arena concludes..."
"Then, no matter what hidden hand is behind this, I doubt they could withstand such a blast."
"In other words, the Ten Thousand Races Arena is like gu-breeding. But if the gu-worm grows powerful enough, it can turn on its master."
"We need to act quickly. The arena is currently unattended, with no one in control. But we don't know when someone might intervene."
"Therefore, we must maximize our strength as fast as possible."
"We need to seize all the top rankings and claim every reward."
"If our items are derived from the world origin..." Scar Dog hesitated before asking, "Does that mean the items in the event shops are also derived from the world origin?"
"Possibly, or possibly not."
Chen Jiang paused, recalling the tablet he'd found in Mist Paradise. He'd seen a conversation between the woman who owned it and her friend, but hadn't paid much attention at the time. Now, as he pieced things together, many things became clear.
In their chat, they had discussed purchasing innate abilities.
He hadn't fully understood it then, but now he did.
To some, players like them were mere chicks, rapidly matured and harvested through accelerated growth.
Of course, these were just his speculations. He lacked specific details, such as how the losses from player deaths were handled.
But this was enough.
Chen Jiang looked up at the countdown panel before him and the small text in the lower right corner:
"Mutated Beast Spawn Point Distribution Map."
The map showed only a few scattered spawn points around his current location.
But that didn't matter.
The spawn points on the map were just branches. The reason these mutated beasts could appear out of thin air in various locations was because of a heart-like mutated beast manufacturing center that pumped blood to all the spawn points.
And that heart-like center...
was right in front of him.
(End of the Chapter)
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