Famine 158: Coordinates

On the first day of the trial run, crowds flocked outside the abyss. Countless players were eager, primed for action.

At first sight of the Mage Tower, Gao Zhai’s eyes lit up, and he stopped in his tracks. “Damn, isn’t this ‘A Real Man Descends One Hundred Floors’?”

Someone nearby instantly countered, “Nonsense! Ever played ‘100-Floor Mage Tower’ on 4399? Looks like an action game, but it’s actually all about numbers—kept me crunching math as a kid.”

“I remember—it’s the one with the thief as the demon lord!” A female player next to him merely nodded, succinct and dry: “Played it.”

Someone else looked nearly in tears, bouncing on tiptoe with excitement: “Damn, after all the years in the apocalypse, I finally get to play a real game…”

Gao Zhai exclaimed, “A genuine combat challenge theme park, one hundred floors, full immersion—what did I do to deserve dreams this sweet… Ouch!”

“All you ever think about is playing!” Liang Qingshuang punched him angrily.

Liang Qingshuang was not as carefree as the rest. Weaving through the noisy crowd, she stared at the abyssal Mage Tower, a stronghold fit for a demon king, mind churning: “The difficulty ramps up steadily, and there are Chosen to safeguard every step…”

Well then, would it be possible for her to try out all-new tactics and battle strategies… surely there’d be no harm in that?

Liang Qingshuang breathed out deeply.

Everyone knew, Famine was never truly a game. It wasn’t like an FPS, with a shooting range for target practice.

Unpredictable and bizarre foes—one could never gauge their strength by sight alone. Every battle was all-out, unique and dangerous, unrepeatable and utterly unpredictable. Even the strongest of players fought face-to-face with death at every turn.

Countless Chosen had fallen into oblivion over the years. The rankings had changed repeatedly; Liang Qingshuang often checked them. Every familiar name vanishing from the list meant another once-mighty player had died a stranger’s death.

Trying out new equipment always meant betting your life—first use in real combat, untested. Players picked up a new spear, facing off for the first time with some inhuman horror, gambling everything…

Who could count the number of possible mishaps?

No surprise then, that enchanted gear reviews were always nearly a hundred percent positive—if something went wrong, well, maybe try again in the next life.

As a result, surviving players were mostly a cautious, conservative lot. Like Wang Jianguo and Lu Xingde with their beast transformations—they chose their style, and rarely strayed from it. New tactics and combos were seldom attempted, even team changes in squads were made with great care.

Each and every one of these hidden burdens, all players knew well.

So now, standing before the abyss, they brushed shoulders, eyes shining with a translucent gleam.

For at last, before them was a place where one could spar and practice, break through limits, engage in high-intensity battles, and do it all in a nearly risk-free training ground…!

Unimaginable—a miracle.

Liang Qingshuang’s hands were trembling.

Nie Du had arrived too. As guest of honor, with Sah Tong and the skeleton ferrymen guards, he stood at the front. This weathered leader gazed at the abyss—where once there had been only darkness and despair, now blazed a luminous, magnificent tower.

“How lucky we are.” Amid the players’ excited clamor, Nie Du’s words flickered and vanished, “We’ve lived to see an age of change.”

—At last, we’ve lived to see an age of change.

The farm was developing faster every day.

Lately, the Gem Domain’s ore had been coming in at a steady rate, with long lines queued up to secure a share. Every time the trading floor opened, supply sold out within moments.

In the industrial zone, flags bearing the farm’s vine crest snapped in the wind. Novel and powerful equipment, stamped with that crest, poured from the forges, arming more and more players.

One hundred thirty pieces a day—thirteen hundred in ten days.

After the early rounds of production, the mine would upgrade, and output rise even higher…

Everyone watched in eager anticipation.

That coiling, twisting vine had become a symbol of sanctuary for countless people, a force to help them break through and be reborn.

More and more players wore the vine crest on their banners, shoulders, arms, and weapons—their reputations now growing.

Just as Nie Du had once predicted.

Players empowered by the farm were no longer even the same breed of life as their common peers.

The proof of this was striking.

The clearing records of the Abyssal Mage Tower.

In Sizhiyan’s estimation, there should be about five teams capable of reaching below the fiftieth floor.

Especially the Xu Bei team, Nie Du’s Skeleton Ferryman Guards, Liang Qingshuang’s Spring Grass Mercs, Yan Cheng’s Abyss Team, and a special group of top players organized by Lin Qiushui to train and drill together.

But, within just a few weeks—

A full seventeen teams had made it.

Many of these squads had no Chosen at all, yet their individual prowess and teamwork rivaled even the best of the elite.

And the most representative was a team called the Bloodray Squad—self-named, but in truth, made up of former police dog handlers.

This team was led by a female player named Xia Ke. Every member had tamed a personal abyssal tendril hound; they ate, slept, and fought side by side, their bonds close as kin.

Most were once bloodkin, and many former members of the cult. When their “friends” were separated from their bodies, they chose to meet these old companions anew, in an entirely different way.

This time, it was no longer about ancient obsessions, twisted experiments, or blind faith…
Just this: I want you to be my comrade, to walk beside me—nothing else.

They were adept at aerial combat, handled tentacles as if extensions of their own limbs; their dogs had lived together for millennia, minds linked with unimaginable understanding.

Their record for task completion was high, but in Famine—without any true grading system—others only noticed they seemed to be doing well, quietly thriving.

But when the assessment came, everyone gasped in amazement—they’d reached the sixty-third floor of the Mage Tower!

Even the well-acknowledged number one, Chosen Yan Cheng’s team, with the rare added bonus of a field medic, had only reached floor seventy!

There were more than a dozen such remarkable teams, each leveraging different farm enhancements, experimenting with unique combat approaches. For instance, ever since Sizhiyan introduced the evasion-effect springwater from the Boundless Pool to the farm relay station, entire high-agility, high-evasion squads had sprung up… and so on, and so forth.

Respect grew, and so did ambition.

If they could do it, why couldn’t we?

The farm’s buffs were numerous and powerful; it was time to think bigger, get more creative.

Noticing this change, Sizhiyan set up a massive scoreboard in the Mage Tower’s first-floor hall.

[Mage Tower Challenge Leaderboard]

The top fifty teams in the deeper levels could inscribe their names.

It was no surprise that first place was Nidhogg, reaching the ninety-eighth floor, and the only solo challenger to do so. Second place went to Xu Bei’s team, third to the Skeleton Ferryman Guards—no one found this unexpected. But from fourth place on…

It was anyone’s guess!

In no time, top-tier squads spurred each other on—each determined to conquer the tower.

A new standard emerged in the community: team strength would henceforth be measured by [Mage Tower Progress]. Many groups subtly realigned their ranks accordingly; where before disputes were settled by brawls in the wild, causing needless bloodshed, there was now an objective, reliable gauge of power.

If they made the leaderboard and you did not, then clearly there was a gap—no sense picking a fight or resenting the strong.

With this, everyone was proud if their team’s name appeared on the board.

At gatherings, Old Wang the innkeeper would hoist a glass of “Awakening Spring” with pride. “This is Liu Yu, our new security chief—her merc team’s twenty-third on the tower board.”

“Oh, impressive!” Applause erupted around the table. “A hero in her own right!”

Liu Yu was a poised young woman with short blue hair, black fingerless gauntlets adorned with the vine crest and red crystal. Back straight, lips curling with a slight smile, she demurred, “It’s just luck—couldn’t have done it without the farm.”

She was humble outwardly, but inwardly—

Damn!! This is glorious!!
All those sleepless nights running strategy, all the head-scratching earned that!

Usually, those windbag teams loved to boast—three parts skill, seven parts hot air, their smooth talk no match for real performance.

Liu Yu’s merc group was tight-knit, but with no Chosen and few members, not great at self-promotion. Though diligent, they rarely landed big jobs, and plenty of employers looked down on her as a young woman. Liu Yu’s anger peaked, but what could she do—she couldn’t very well kill the clients just to show her strength.

So, life was comfortable but never rich.

But once the tide receded, it was clear who was real and who just talked.

Now, with their name on the board, every sneer and slight of the past was turned to ash—big clients and big orders started rolling in, along with the respect they deserved.

Clenching her red-crystal gauntlets, Liu Yu felt overwhelming gratitude to the farm owner.

Following Nidhogg’s coordinates to the farm had been the wisest, best choice of her life!
Nothing else came close!

…

In this increasingly martial atmosphere, time marched on.

Very soon, the mine’s experience reached its threshold.

[Lv1 Mine Estimated Output: 1000g/day (refined)]
[Current Mine Experience: 210274/200000]

According to the system’s forecasts, it would have taken two hundred days of production to reach level two. In reality, by mobilizing the players, Sizhiyan nearly boosted that figure tenfold. It took less than a month to hit the upgrade requirement—just in time for the next world switch.

With a flash and a tremor, the new mine, deeper and bearing new ores, appeared on the farm.

“Lu Gong! Lu Gong! The mine upgraded! Come see!”
“This is the new ore! Wow, so pretty…”

“Where? Let me take a look!”

Everyone hurried to see; Lu Xingde swung in immediately, crowding around excitedly.

But after their initial delight, people paused before the new rock, eyeing each other with uncertainty.

“The effect is good—should be added to extraction plans…” someone murmured, hesitant, “But how are we supposed to refine this?”

Lu Xingde frowned, studying the ore, then made a firm decision: “Show it to Mr. Si.”

And so, the rock was placed on Sizhiyan’s desk.

“It’s not in any manual we have, so we’re out of options.” Wu Jing shook his head.

“This stuff is way beyond player capabilities—no way is it something humans can forge. The only place that might handle it is the legendary Hephaestus Bastion.”

Hephaestus Bastion…

Sizhiyan picked up the stone, examined it, and put it back. He waved to Wu Jing and Lu Xingde that they could leave. They did so with respect, closing the door softly behind them.

Now only the glinting lake outside the window, and Sizhiyan himself, remained.

Rubbing his brow, Sizhiyan sighed gently.

After completing [Side Quest — The Lingering Dream], the system—or rather, Bian Xu—had given him a set of [Hephaestus Bastion Coordinates].

He had checked them immediately.

What he found made his pupils contract.

Coordinates were a basic concept in the Famine game. By opening the main interface, players could see their current coordinates and bearing relative to the world’s point of origin. This helped keep people from getting lost. Nidhogg, when reporting his location, used this format. Coordinates used three axes—X, Y, Z—each a seven-digit number, entry like: (3478987, 7894326, 3781289).

Players could gauge the path to any destination from their current position using the coordinates.

But the Hephaestus Bastion’s coordinates were—like this:

[￥%joidehukc5djoijqoihuik3wi70344]

Utter gibberish.

He had never seen coordinates like that before. After careful consideration, Sizhiyan could reach only one conclusion—

[Hephaestus Bastion] wasn’t in this world at all.

According to rumor, the place was shrouded in myth, unknown to all. Only a rare few, by sheer chance, ever chanced on their traders or agents, but no one had ever found it by intent.

No one knew how they managed it.

But being masters cursed with their skills, perhaps this was one way to protect themselves.

Yet…

If he couldn’t possibly reach these coordinates, why had Bian Xu given them to him so painstakingly?

Sizhiyan gripped the vine and asked in a low voice.

The vine could not answer.

But Sizhiyan knew: Bian Xu always had his reasons.

He’d been thinking about it for days. After a long, pensive silence, Sizhiyan let go of the vine.

There were things he could not figure out, and some that he now understood.
It was time to start laying out his plans.

Time was running short.

Sizhiyan lifted his gaze to the sullen mists blanketing Tenman’s Land, and to the giant eye ever looming in the sky.

—The day the world switched, the general assault on [the Eye] would begin.

Sizhiyan met that bizarre, sanguine gaze, lips moving in a silent smile.

All these years of struggle, all our unfinished business—it was finally time for this story to end.