Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 163 - 163: 161: First Completion Battle?

He felt like he had prepared a big surprise, but the players just wouldn’t discuss it, always being distracted by strange things.

This inevitably made him feel like he was casting pearls before swine.

It just felt…lackluster!

Adding to that the need to deal with the large-scale neural modulator-demodulator issue, he decided – might as well not go to work today.

He hadn’t planned to start a new project this week anyway, even if his employees collectively stopped him from taking an open vacation, not scheduling new development tasks, leaving the employees with nothing to do, would achieve the purpose of a disguised vacation.

Let them all rest enough, so they can work with full energy afterward.

By the way, when he has time, he should ask Fred about NetDragon’s “Blaze 3” DLC development progress. If their development speed can keep up, maybe they can launch together?

As Lincoln thinks about these matters, sleepiness overcomes him and he drifts off again.

Mavis changes her surroundings to a forest, hanging a swing from the branch of a luxuriant giant tree.

Finally, she puts on a light green dress, leisurely swinging while staring at the sleeping Lincoln.

Like a quiet forest fairy.

Today is the fourth day since the game’s release, and the main story’s first completion contest is getting more intense with many players watching.

Lance has inexplicably become one of the frontrunners.

Despite having much less time online, he still manages to stay ahead of the pack; his unwavering focus helps him a great deal.

No matter what the NPCs say, he doesn’t question or argue, always responding in the most straightforward language and pursuing his end goal.

“Your father was killed by Cross.” “I know, I will avenge him.” “You need to undergo rigorous training.”

“You’re right, let’s get started.”

“Our assassination orders all come from this Destiny Weaver…”

—’Cool. Can you tell me who to kill now?”

“You need to kill this person, though he hasn’t committed a crime yet, but the prophecy tells us his death will save many.”

—”What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

This saves the Assassin’s organization a lot of time explaining the ins and outs, and indirectly saves Lance a lot of time.

Another time-consuming aspect, the quest line of developing a relationship with Firefox, was also skipped by Lance.

Whether during training or on missions, Lance never initiates any conversation, and always responds indifferently to Firefox’s attempts at conversation.

Basically responding with “Hmm”, “Alright”, ‘Yes”…

After a few times, Firefox stops trying to talk to him.

Lance once again proves the saying—women will only slow down his progress!

Lance’s final advantage is his extensive combat experience.

One thing must be made clear, skills like [Shooting Mastery] can greatly enhance combat power, but it doesn’t mean you are invincible simply by blindly raising skill levels.

According to Lincoln’s design, even if a character reaches max level, a gunshot to the heart will still result in instant death.

At most, after leveling up, one can increase the [Assassin Bloodline] level, allowing them to enter bullet time when facing a mortal crisis, better avoiding and dealing with danger.

But physical strength is limited, and it’s impossible to dodge indefinitely.

So in “Assassins’ Alliance,” simply stacking numerical values won’t make you invincible.

Gunfights are multi-dimensional, complex battles. Just being accurate isn’t enough. You need to be constantly aware of the battlefield, staying alert, searching for cover, choosing paths of movement, evading trajectories, calculating arced trajectories, and seizing opportunities for counterattacks…

Even remembering how many bullets are left in your gun and seizing the opportunity to manually reload is necessary.

Theoretically, as long as your level reaches the minimum standard, you can clear a quest even without unlocking [Curved Shot]. It’s just that the requirements for comprehensive combat capability would be extremely demanding.

At least, as a top-level professional player, Lance may not be able to do it.

But that won’t affect one thing—Lance’s comprehensive combat capability is already top-notch among players, and he doesn’t need high character and skill levels to finish the game.

Lance rarely considers the difficulty of tasks. As long as his level is high enough to initiate a quest, he immediately charges forward without hesitation!

Now, after various trainings and assassination missions, his personal level has reached 7, [Assassin Bloodline] has been upgraded to level 4, and he also has [Shooting Expertise LV.6] and [Curved Shot LV.3]. With these three “godly skills,” he feels almost invincible.

With full confidence, he triggered the quest—”Accidental Encounter with

Cross.”

When he encountered Cross in person, he didn’t wait for backup from other assassin mentors but decisively pursued him.

As a result, due to being on high alert and a hint from the system, he turned around and shot the “Russian” killer who had been raising rats, hitting him squarely in the chest.

In his shock, Lance loosened his guard.

A bullet shot from Cross’s muzzle, tracing a perfect arc, flew past one assassin after another and hit Lance’s left arm accurately.

Then, Cross escaped, melting into the shadows.

In the end, Lance was lying in the Restoration Pool, watching his companion in another pool, who was vomiting blood and babbling nonsense about “a thousand rats” due to his accidental injury.

He could no longer stay calm, not knowing whether to be angry at the traitor Cross or his mistake. He just felt enraged!

Previously, the Alliance had told countless stories of Cross’s brutality and cunning, and Lance even saw the bodies of assassins killed by Cross, covered with white cloth and returned to the base.

He had been entirely indifferent to those stories, treating them as background noise.

But now, he was genuinely angry! So angry that he was grinding his teeth!

Without thinking, Lance followed the task hint, dug the bullet out of his shoulder—feeling like pulling a loose nail from a piece of wood.

He took the bullet to the gunsmith and successfully traced the origin of the bullet to a man named Pavel Vaclavsky, who was in a monastery in Moravia, the birthplace of the Alliance.

Then, without thinking, he accepted the task of assassinating Cross and went to the monastery.

In the monastery, Firefox unexpectedly appeared and helped Lance to capture the white-bearded Pavel Vaclavsky. He successfully threatened the old man to arrange a meeting with Cross.

Of course, “meeting” here means he took Firefox and thirty armed men to the train station.

Lance and Firefox hid not far from the white-bearded old man, watching him and waiting for the train to arrive.

However, when the train arrived and stopped, the old man didn’t board, but turned and ran without warning!

Both charged out of their hiding place, pushing away the obstructing crowd and chasing the old man.

Lance sprinted past the train compartments one after another.

But in an inadvertent moment, he caught a glimpse of a special presence – at the door of a passing compartment, a figure with a lowered head stood silently. Only when Lance ran past did the figure slightly raise his head, revealing half a face. It was— Cross!

Lance immediately stopped running and turned around.

But the train was about to start, and he didn’t even have time to call out to Firefox, who was still fervently chasing. Without hesitation, he abandoned the white-bearded old man, loaded his gun, and boarded the train.

He began to pursue his ultimate target, Cross!

Excitedly, he thought: This must be the final BOSS battle!