Game: Civilization Paradise

Chapter 148: Chapter 148: Red Countdown

Soon after, Long Ming returned to his apartment building and walked toward his unit.

He saw that the door to the neighboring apartment was open. Zhou Hao was inside, hauling bags of all sizes into his home.

"Brother Zhou, what are you busy with?"

Long Ming asked curiously.

Zhou Hao looked up at Long Ming, panting as he spoke.

"Stockpiling food, of course. Haven’t you seen how chaotic it is out there? I bet Mountain City Mountain is about to go to war with other cities."

"It can’t be that bad, can it?"

"What do you mean, ’not that bad’? Speaking of which, you haven’t stockpiled anything?"

"No."

Long Ming shook his head.

Hearing Long Ming’s reply, Zhou Hao suddenly thought of something and asked with a hint of unease.

"Bro, you’re not one of those ’my neighbor stockpiles food, so I’ll stockpile guns, because my neighbor is my pantry’ types, are you?"

"Ahem, Brother Zhou, I think you’re overthinking things."

Long Ming said helplessly.

"Haha, I was just kidding."

Zhou Hao laughed awkwardly.

"Right. Well, I’m heading back inside."

Long Ming didn’t say any more to Zhou Hao. He walked directly to his door, opened it, and went inside.

He shut the door, wearily returned to his bedroom, and fell onto the bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

...

「The next day at noon.」

In the bedroom of his rented apartment.

"COUGH COUGH~"

The sleeping Long Ming coughed incessantly.

He slowly opened his eyes, reached for his phone to check the time, and then sat up.

Long Ming took a few minutes to come to his senses as his mind gradually cleared.

He got up, walked to the table beside him, and took his medicine with some water.

’The recent high-intensity dungeon runs have been making my health worse and worse.’

But Long Ming had no choice. Although Doctor Cheng had told him his condition was under control, he knew it was only a matter of time before his body deteriorated further.

’That’s why I need to get stronger and make more money.’

With this in mind, Long Ming left his room and headed for the kitchen.

「Half an hour later.」

After finishing his meal, Long Ming returned to his bedroom and walked to his bed.

He picked up the helmet, put it on, and logged into the game.

SWISH!

When he opened his eyes again, he was in Starry City.

Long Ming raised his wristband, found the Honor Leaderboard, and opened it. He quickly saw his name listed on the safe mission.

He then glanced at the KDI leaderboard and was surprised to find himself in the top 100. Fortunately, he was only ranked 62nd, which wasn’t too conspicuous.

’The ranking makes sense, though. After all, I had some bad luck and got blown up once before.’

The only thing that surprised him was just how many skilled players there were.

Long Ming quickly found the privacy button and hid his information.

But just then, Long Ming suddenly noticed a red countdown timer in the upper-left corner of the Honor Leaderboard.

days, 10 hours, 32 minutes, 16 seconds.

Long Ming stared at the countdown timer with a puzzled expression.

’What is this countdown for? There’s no explanation at all.’

However, Long Ming quickly stopped worrying about it. ’It’s probably for an expansion pack update.’

He opened his wristband and accessed the shop to check the buyback prices for the meteorite, disk, and photo.

Observatory Memento: 10,000,000 1D coins

SC-01 Observatory Classified Disk: 50,000,000 1D coins

Meteorite X-01: 300,000,000 1D coins

Seeing the high buyback price for the meteorite, Long Ming’s face lit up. He tapped his wristband to switch to the auction interface.

He was about to list the meteorite for auction, but he hesitated as he was doing so.

’I should read the auction rules carefully. I need to check the fee for a failed auction. If it’s ten percent, that would be a huge loss.’

Fortunately, the rules were clearly written: the minimum fee was 100,000 1D coins, and if the auction failed, only the minimum fee would be charged.

After double-checking that there were no other issues, Long Ming listed it for 400,000,000 1D coins.

After doing all this, he sold back everything he had brought out, except for the miniature optical telescope.

BUZZ~

A notification immediately popped up on his wristband.

"Notification: You have received 530,000,000 1D coins."

Looking at the incoming 1D coins, Long Ming was ecstatic. He then found a place to sit down, took out the physical combat manual, and began to study it.

Several hours passed in the blink of an eye.

Long Ming opened the auction page to check. So far, there were still no bids.

Seeing this, he couldn’t help but sigh. ’Looks like this meteorite is going to fail at auction.’

Long Ming had figured out the loot generation mechanics. Some high-grade items had such high buyback prices largely due to their intrinsic significance.

However, they didn’t hold much value for other players, which meant they were basically impossible to sell.

So, Long Ming didn’t agonize over it. He directly canceled the auction and decisively sold the meteorite back to the system.

"Notification: You have received 300,000,000 1D coins."

Long Ming looked at the over 830 million 1D coins in his account, then opened his friends list and sent a message to Xiaopang.

"Come find me."

Before long, Xiaopang came scampering over.

"I’m here! Did you get the money?"

"Yeah. Keep buying medicine for me. When you run out, come get more."

Long Ming traded 130,000,000 1D coins to Xiaopang.

"You got it!"

Xiaopang looked at the money he’d received and happily opened the shop to start buying medicine.

"I’m going to log off and rest. Call me if you need anything."

Long Ming planned to use the time while the medicine was being bought to get some proper rest. Because of the frequent dungeon runs, he hadn’t been taking his medicine properly, nor had he been eating regular meals.

"No problem."

Xiaopang replied with a cheerful laugh.

...

「In his rented apartment.」

Long Ming took off his helmet and went to his computer desk.

He turned on his computer, logged into the forums, and searched for information about the countdown timer on the Honor Leaderboard, hoping to find out what it was for.

Soon, Long Ming found a discussion thread about the countdown.

He clicked on the thread and saw many people discussing it inside.

"Guys, what do you all think that countdown means?"

"I feel like it’s a countdown for a version update."

"I think so too."

"Pfft, you’re all wrong. If you ask me, it’s a countdown to when the game starts charging money."

"Damn, charging money?"

"Yeah, you think a huge game like this is just going to let you play for free forever? The initial free period was just to let you try it out. Now that the trial period is over, it’d be weird if they *didn’t* start asking for money. You think the guys in charge are philanthropists?!"

"That makes sense... so shameless."

...

Long Ming read through all the comments and fell silent for a moment.

Actually, all of their guesses made some sense, especially the one about the version update, which seemed highly probable.

The problem was that no one could give a definitive answer, which made it difficult to prepare in advance.

However, he didn’t dwell on it for too long. He got up and started exercising in his room.

...

「The next morning.」

Long Ming was fast asleep in his bed.

BUZZ~

Suddenly, his phone started vibrating.

Long Ming glanced at it, saw it was a call from Xiaopang, and picked it up.

"Hello? Did you run out of money already?"

"No, there’s a problem."

Xiaopang said hurriedly to Long Ming.

"What kind of problem?"

Long Ming immediately sat up and asked.

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