Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 73 - 68 Rankings

Chapter 73: Chapter 68 Rankings

6:00 AM.

With the shutdown of "Dark Sand," Chu Ge woke up on his dorm bed.

His roommate’s alarm clock also went off. After turning off the alarm, he yawned and asked, "So, did you clear it last night?"

Chu Ge stretched contentedly, full of energy, "Cleared it!

"And it wasn’t just me. Zhao Hai Ping and the others should have cleared it too.

"In fact, players had already straightened out all the doubts on the forums during the day yesterday and roughly figured out the solutions. Last night was just about confirming those guesses.

"If a literary player like me could clear it, there shouldn’t be any problem for top players of other professions to clear it either."

His roommate, enviously, said, "Ah, I’m so jealous of you. Playing all night and waking up as if you’ve been injected with chicken blood.

"If I were the developer of this game, wouldn’t I be charging by the hour? All those sleeping pill manufacturers, all that ASMR, all those insomnia therapy sessions... they’d all be out of jobs.

"Damn it, when will I ever get the beta access? I really want to play!"

The roommate complained while getting out of bed to wash up.

The accommodation at Tiandu University could be considered top-notch in the country, with graduate dormitories being double rooms that were quite nice.

Chu Ge’s roommate was Li Hongyun, a history major just like Chu Ge, and also an old otaku and a seasoned whale in mobile games.

It’s not that he could afford to be a whale because his family owned a mine, but rather because his name reflected his luck, which was very good.

As a graduate student in history, his life was carefree, filled with studying, playing, and whaling in mobile games for his 2D waifus with his Euro king luck, offering him a top-tier gaming experience.

But ever since "Dark Sand" burst onto the scene, his happiness had faded.

Because Chu Ge got the beta access, while he, the supposed Euro king, did not!

Not only did he not get it on the first try, he didn’t get it on the second try either!

For someone who prided himself as a Euro king, this was simply unacceptable.

But his woes didn’t end there.

Chu Ge played the game every night in bed and still managed to wake up promptly at 6 AM, full of vigor and enthusiasm, not letting it interfere with his research, gaming, or studies in the least.

This was what made Li Hongyun feel desperate.

So competitive. Too competitive!

He couldn’t accept it, so he also set an alarm for six in the morning but soon found it a bit exhausting to maintain.

After all, Chu Ge had black technology while he did not even have a mutation. How could they compare?

It was like challenging a rich kid’s pocket money with one’s own worth in a pay-to-win game, a feeling of helplessness.

Moreover, Chu Ge had become a top god in "Dark Sand," a game that had caused a global sensation. He could top the first-clear leaderboards, and casually writing a strategy post would attract countless followers, making Li Hongyun even more envious.

So now he prayed every day, hoping "Dark Sand" would quickly launch a third batch of beta access so he could enter the game and experience it soon.

...

After washing up, the first thing Chu Ge did, of course, was to open the official website of "Dark Sand."

He wrote down his strategy experience, then looked at the discussions among the players.

However, to his surprise, the official website of "Dark Sand" had unexpectedly updated with a new section!

On the website, a historical timeline had been updated from top to bottom, with the not-yet-activated parts all locked. The section corresponding to the later stages of the Great Sheng Dynasty and the "Trial Illusion" of "Death Awaits Even in Victory" had been opened up as a separate section.

Clicking into it, besides videos and highlight posts related to the instance, the most prominent position held a leaderboard and a countdown!

The leaderboard displayed player IDs, professions, and clearance scores, while the countdown was set for 3 days.

"The leaderboard is already out as soon as the first player cleared the instance?"

"The officials are still the same, efficiency is really high."

"They must have prepared it in advance, just waiting for players to clear the instance and then immediately unlock it."

Chuge immediately clicked into the leaderboard to check and found that he had made the list, but not completely.

Being on the list meant that his name indeed appeared on the leaderboard, but there was no ranking; instead, like Zhao Haiping and others, he was at the very bottom of the leaderboard.

As for the first to the fiftieth positions on the leaderboard, they were completely vacant.

"Why is that?"

Chuge was curious, and after clicking on the leaderboard’s information page for a closer look, he finally understood.

"So only scores of ’B+,’ or higher, can enter the leaderboard, and now the players who have cleared the instance, the highest scores are only ’C-’ and ’D+’?"

"That means, this leaderboard has both ’selective’ and ’qualifying’ screening mechanisms."

"Pretty strict."

A selective test only picks a certain number of people, ranked by score from high to low; a qualifying test is to set a score line, and anyone above that line is deemed qualified, with no limit on the number of people.

But in the game Dark Sand, the ultimate trial appears much more stringent. It’s not just about ranking high; challenge qualification requires meeting both rank and score criteria.

"Does that mean there is actually a lot of room for improvement within this Trial Illusion?"

"Hmm, it makes sense. Although a bunch of top players all cleared it smoothly, the clearing process was somewhat bumpy and far from perfect."

"Moreover, some settings in the instance seem untouched upon completion, like what the role of the petty merchant is for, which hasn’t been discovered yet. This suggests that even after clearing, there’s still much to research."

"Just like many single-player games’ speedruns."

"That means, can’t get complacent, got to keep working hard."

"Let’s see what the other players are saying."

Chuge opened the forum to check out the new posts from players.

"The top players are really too strong! I tried it out last night based on a few top players’ guesses, and I didn’t expect to actually clear it! Although I can’t compare with the top players, just showing my face on the leaderboard is enough for me!"

"Damn it, I was so close to clearing it. I thought I had a chance today, but I didn’t expect to wake up and see so many people have cleared it! Too competitive, too competitive!"

"Doesn’t anyone want to discuss the plot of this instance? Actually, looking back after clearing it, the plot of this instance isn’t too complex; simply put, it’s about integrating the people in the county town who are willing to oppose the bandits to eliminate the stronger bandits."

"But when you first enter, it’s quite confusing. Just finding the spy, determining the compromised characters, and discovering the method to break the situation took so much time, even with many players sharing their experiences. If you had to try over and over by yourself, who knows until when it would take!"

"And for me, the biggest realization is, real history is so hard! These people had only one night, and if anything went wrong at any part of the plan, it would fail, and history books would be written differently."

"Yeah, I really didn’t expect the key figure at the end to be Yang Xinyan. In retrospect, the name ’Victory Awaits Beyond The Grave’ was really fitting, hinting at us from the beginning."

"Although the characters in this instance didn’t have much screen time, they were quite memorable!"

"But feels like this instance is kind of critical of the literati, eh? That treacherous scholar, and the scammer Wang Jinhui, both literati who write excellent poetry, yet they’re the most unreliable. In contrast, the two opera singers were clearer about the greater good of their nation at critical moments."

"Then there’s County Magistrate Tang with something to say about that. His presence wasn’t strong, but he’s also a literatus! Just one wielding a big knife, cutting down people, making you overlook that fact."

"Ah... right, I forgot the character setting of County Magistrate Tang was also that of a literatus..."

"So that’s why the instance is called ’Victory Awaits Beyond The Grave,’ it’s basically saying that to become a hero, it doesn’t depend on your status, position, or what you’ve said before, but whether at the very end, you can make the right choice in your heart."

"Of course, even if you become a hero, it doesn’t mean you’ll be remembered in history books. Like in this instance, in the end, the only one remembered was County Magistrate Tang. As for Gao Ze, Su Xianjun, and Yang Xinyan, these characters made tremendous sacrifices but remained unknown to anyone."

"Feels like this story would make an interesting movie, right? I remember the official beta player recruitment notice saying something about fulfilling dreams of becoming a film star?"

"That must refer to completing the ultimate trial, right? That’s only accessible to very few, the highest difficulty with 100% pain sensation. Just thinking about it is scary."

"What’s scary about 100% pain sensation? You’re already ranked top five on the leaderboard, you definitely must be almost unharmed. Stop talking, I’m going to gather information right now. I’m researching a speedrun tonight!"

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