ryethenovel Chapter 11 doesn't even have Wikipedia!
Chapter 11 doesn't even have Wikipedia!
It was already four in the morning when we got back to the Dragon Guard's camp.
After taking a shower, Lu Yan sat on the edge of the bed wrapped in a bath towel, his mind still racing.
In his past life, he was a professional treasure hunter who made a living by exploiting information asymmetry.
He is responsible for most of the information on the world's largest Wikipedia website.
Every top-tier item-hunting studio has its own internal data, which it keeps as its lifeblood and never reveals to outsiders.
He pulled up his communication panel and sent a message to Xiao Qianyu.
[Is there a database related to dungeons? Something like an encyclopedia, with monster data, loot mechanics, terrain maps, and a list of known boss skills for dungeons of all levels. The more comprehensive, the better.]
The reply came very quickly.
There is no such thing.
Lu Yan stared at those two words for five seconds.
[There's no encyclopedia entry for this?]
The Dragon Guard's intelligence team has compiled several reports on secret realms, covering less than 15% of the total known secret realms. If you want to find a guide for a specific realm, I can help you retrieve the save file, but don't expect any one-stop solution.
Lu Yan put down the communicator and opened the public forum.
I entered "Secret Realm Database", "Illustrated Guide", and "Encyclopedia" into the search bar and flipped through more than twenty pages.
There are quite a few posts. Most of them are personal experience posts, written in all sorts of different styles, and some even misspell the names of the secret realms.
The comments section was in complete chaos. Someone said the boss had 800,000 HP, someone else said no, it was 750,000, and a third person jumped in to accuse the first two of talking nonsense.
No platform has done any systematic integration.
Lu Yan leaned back, resting the back of his head against the wall.
Thinking about it, it's actually quite normal. It's only been ten years since the Mysterious Realm appeared, and global research efforts have primarily focused on fundamental physics and awakening mechanisms.
As for the actual combat data inside the secret realm—who would release their painstakingly developed strategy guides, risking their lives, for free? Military forces around the world are keeping it tightly under wraps.
The information barriers are ridiculously high.
A newly awakened player who wants to enter a secret realm has three options: either spend a fortune on a guide, join a veteran's team and listen to their advice, or risk their life to try it out. Each of these three paths is designed to filter out unsuitable players.
Why is the casualty rate of awakened beings in China so high? Poor equipment is one factor, but information asymmetry is the real hidden killer.
How many people have died because of a blind spot in their knowledge that the boss would release a full-screen poison mist in the second phase, a fact that could have been avoided?
If it were made into a publicly available, continuously updated encyclopedia of hidden realms—
He opened his eyes and sat up straight.
If the overall survival rate of Chinese Awakened Ones increases, more people will be able to enter the secret realm, the probability of producing equipment will increase, and the foundation of the country can truly be strengthened.
No matter how incredible his aura is, how many dungeons can a small team clear in a day? Ten? Twenty?
A drop in the ocean.
However, if all the exploration teams across the country could obtain accurate information about the secret realms, resulting in fewer deaths and more loot, then that would be a qualitative leap caused by quantitative change.
Moreover—doing this would also benefit him personally. The compilation of the encyclopedia requires a large amount of data feedback from the front lines, which is equivalent to establishing an intelligence network among the awakened population nationwide. Whoever discovers a new hidden room, whoever figures out a new mechanic of the Boss, the data will be collected and sent to him.
An information hub is more valuable than any title.
Lu Yan opened his notes app, scribbled down a framework for twenty minutes, saved it, turned off the lights, and went to sleep.
This can't be rushed; let's finish the work at hand first.
---
The following afternoon, in the conference hall on the third floor of the Longwei Command Building.
Li Tianshan was dressed in a formal suit, his collar insignia neat, standing behind the podium.
The entire first squad lined up.
The process was short. Li Tianshan wasn't one to waste time with small talk.
"I've seen the first clear report of the Corrupted Hive." He picked up a thin document on the table. "Single dungeon drops: one legendary item, three epic items, forty-seven unique items, and several gold items. This number exceeds the total cumulative drops of the Dragon Guard in C-rank dungeons over the past three years."
The conference room was so quiet that you could hear the hum of the air conditioning vents.
"The entire First Squad is awarded a First-Class Merit."
A round of applause erupted.
Li Tianshan closed the document and changed his tone.
"Now that the good news is over, let's talk about something less lighthearted."
The holographic sand table lit up automatically, projecting a huge model of a spatial rift, its color a dark red.
"The frontline secret realm will open in one week."
Lu Yan noticed that several people in the group had slightly adjusted their posture.
Zhao Leiguang's shoulder slumped half an inch, and Wen Yue's hand unconsciously touched the quiver buckle at her waist.
"All combat units are on standby. Specific deployment details will be issued tomorrow. Meeting adjourned."
---
As we left the conference hall, the fluorescent lights in the corridor cast long shadows on everyone.
Lu Yan grabbed Wen Yue, who was walking ahead: "What is the frontline secret realm?"
Wen Yue turned around and looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"you do not know?"
"I'm a country bumpkin!"
"Alright!" Wen Yue clapped her hands, squatted down by the window in the corridor, propped her recurve bow against the corner of the wall, and gestured with her hands in the air. "The front-line secret realm is completely different from the dungeons we usually run."
"How are they different?"
"In the daily dungeons, you fight monsters. In the frontline dungeons—" Wen Yue raised her index finger, "it's a battle between people."
Lu Yan's eyebrows twitched slightly.
"It opens once or twice a year, on a global scale. A massive spatial rift tears open, and Awakened from all participating nations are grouped into the same secret realm. There are no spawning monsters or NPCs inside; there are only Awakened from other nations."
"What's the target?"
"Resource points." Wen Yue drew a circle in the air. "There are a large number of strategic resource points scattered throughout the secret realm. You can gain points by capturing and defending them. It's an endless battle 24 hours a day, and the results will be automatically tallied when the time is up."
"What if I die inside the secret realm?"
Wen Yue stopped.
"Once you die... you lose everything." Her speech slowed down. "The Frontline Secret Realm has a special mechanism—Soul Anchoring Shield. In a normal secret realm, if you die, your soul will be retrieved by a portal and reborn at the resurrection altar outside. But the Frontline Secret Realm has disabled this mechanism. People who die inside will not be resurrected."
Two support soldiers from the Dragon Guard passed by in the corridor, their footsteps fading into the distance.
"The top three countries in terms of points will each receive the right to use an S-level elite secret realm, an S-level ordinary secret realm, and an A-level elite secret realm, respectively." Wen Yue counted on her fingers, "There are only one or two opportunities a year. Two of the three S-level secret realm entrances held by the White Eagle Empire were seized from the front-line secret realms."
"So Commander Li means that we...?"
"We have to go." Zhao Leiguang stopped at some point, his two-meter-tall frame blocking the corner of the corridor, his voice descending from above. "If we don't participate, it's equivalent to automatically forfeiting our right to compete for the S-level secret realm. But those people from White Eagle and the Northern Federation are all equipped with Mythic-level gear, while our main force can't even gather a complete Legendary-level set. Last year, China ranked ninth on the leaderboard, lost many members, and was ridiculed domestically for a long time."
"However, we have a great chance this time. With your addition, the equipment we supply now allows many of the awakened members of the National Guard to be equipped with equipment comparable to that of front-line combatants. We have also replaced a lot of our equipment. Unfortunately, we don't know how to make our own equipment like the people of the White Eagle."
"Craft it yourself? Can you see the attributes of the equipment they craft?"
"Go to the secret base and you can access the global equipment rankings. You can take a look; the top ten are basically all their handcrafted equipment."
Lu Yan bid farewell to Zhao Leiguang and headed to the rankings to find out more.