Chapter 1457: 793: The Tiger and the Lamb (Part 2)
Chapter 1457: Chapter 793: The Tiger and the Lamb (Part 2)
“Eh, how come you can access the Virtual Warehouse?” Qing Chen asked in confusion, “Aren’t you guys at the bottom of society? How can you afford the Virtual Warehouse?”
Xiao Hei explained, “We are slaves. Our ancestors committed crimes, so their descendants are slaves. The Kingdom organization bought me from the Slave Master to do hard labor in the Aerial Fortress. Before coming here, my Slave Master was quite fond of the Superconductor World. He would have us twelve slaves enter the Virtual Warehouse to obtain some materials for him or enter game instances to help him break speedrun records… These things have rankings, and the top hundred can earn money.”
Qing Chen thought to himself, isn’t this low-cost power leveling and farming, just providing a meal is enough.
Xiao Hei continued, “If we failed to gather materials or got too little, we would be beaten up.”
As he spoke, he took off his shirt, and Qing Chen saw his chest and back were covered with whip marks.
Yi couldn’t bear it and said, “No one does anything about this?”
Xiao Hei said, “Slaves are private property of the Slave Masters, they can even be killed.”
Qing Chen asked, “What’s the use of money in the Superconductor World?”
Xiao Hei was momentarily stunned, “That’s digital currency, it has long been linked to the currency of the Roosevelt Kingdom. The Superconductor World has its own foreign exchange reserves, and it can settle cash you extract from the Superconductor World based on exchange rate fluctuations, so many people rely on the Superconductor World to earn money.”
“Who does the Superconductor World belong to?”
“It belongs to the Superconductor Company under the Roosevelt Family. Strictly speaking, it belongs to the King,” Xiao Hei said.
Qing Chen shook his head and fell into deep thought. A company with ownership cannot be completely decentralized, nor could any government allow a ‘completely’ decentralized world to exist because it’s a nation within a nation!
In fact, the concept of the metaverse has always been a false proposition. As long as someone can intervene in management, it can’t be called a true metaverse.
Moreover, Qing Chen always felt that an awakened artificial intelligence being could never be completely controlled by humans.
Qing Chen asked, “Let’s not talk about that. I want to ask you something, what is the status of white people in the Superconductor World? Why does it seem like everyone has a grudge against them?”
At this, Xiao Hei laughed, “You must not be from the West Continent, so you don’t know, but in the West Continent, whites have a very high status.”
According to Xiao Hei, the hierarchy in the West Continent is divided into King, Nobles, Citizens, Freemen, and Slaves.
As for the King, it’s the legacy of the Roosevelt Family Head, passed down through generations.
Nobles are divided into Duke, Earl, and Baron.
There are only four Dukes, each governing a city. The City Lord of Storm City, Mr. Storm, is a Duke, succeeded by bloodline and also passed down through generations.
Next are the Citizens. Whites are naturally citizens, while blacks and Asians are considered inferior Freemen.
Citizens can hold national public offices, while Freemen cannot.
White Citizens serve one-year military duty and can become officers directly.
Black and Asian Freemen have to serve ten years and also compete for limited spots to become Citizens.
Slaves are descendants of those who committed crimes in the past or the defeated side in earlier civil wars within the Kingdom. They can be freely bought and sold.
However, only White Citizens, Nobles, and the King can own slaves and private armed forces.
So, Whites in the West Continent naturally hold a superior status.
However, it’s different in the Superconductor World. No one knows anyone there, and even if you get into a fight, you can’t find the real person.
So when blacks and Asians see whites, they settle both old and new scores, and naturally beat them to death…
As a result, there’s a guide circulating online in the West Continent: Never go into the Superconductor World with a white person’s appearance.
Qing Chen sighed, not knowing this earlier.
Now it seems he’s born with countless enemies!
This also indicates that the Superconductor World is indeed decentralized. Otherwise, would the high and mighty Whites and Nobles tolerate being targeted like this in a virtual world? They’d have already tracked down IPs and traced it back to eliminate the threat!
This makes Qing Chen even more convinced that there’s something odd about this world, and it couldn’t possibly be under the complete control of the Roosevelt Family.
Thinking this far, he already realizes that things aren’t that simple. Perhaps the relationship between the Superconductor World and the Roosevelt Family is more complicated, leading to such a distorted product in society.
Qing Chen asked, “So, are the newbie spawn points fixed?”
“Yes,” Xiao Hei nodded, “There is only one city in the Superconductor World, and it has 100 newbie spawn points. Everyone must retrain from scratch after dying, even S-Class elites, who are reduced to newbie F-Class when they die, losing all their money, equipment, and levels.”
Just like in the real world, life only happens once, and there’s no do-over.
Qing Chen muttered softly, “There’s no damn safe zone or newbie protection either; this is way too real.”
Yi asked puzzledly, “Did you encounter any issue?”
“No,” Qing Chen said nonchalantly, “I just asked casually, don’t overthink it. By the way, does every newbie ‘born’ have a key in their pocket?”
His key had already been looted…
Xiao Hei said, “That’s a complementary trial copy opportunity from the Superconductor World. After using it, you need to purchase keys.”
“I see,” Qing Chen nodded. Fortunately, this key isn’t too crucial. It seems those people camping at the spawn point weren’t killing him out of boredom but were specifically targeting the Multi-world Keys from the newbie packages, killing him in the process.