613 A Tour of Penglai City

Wei Wendong followed the tiny mermaid guide and looked at the clock on the screen at the massive central tower.

12:10

After hesitating for a moment, he called out the menu, messaged his teammates who planned to enter the scenario and asked them to wait a moment. But when he opened his friend list, he discovered that the professional players from Kings already messaged him.

"Captain, can we go into the scenario ten minutes later? The helmet system just updated. Let me try to figure it out."

"Shadow, I need to go to the washroom. Wait for me. I'll be five minutes!"

"Captain, did you see Future Technology's advertisement? Is it really an ad and not a new game they made?"

Wei Wendong forced a smile.

These guys... the legendary scenario was about to start and they all dropped the ball at the same time.

But then his face immediately turned red. As someone who was about to message them to delay the scenario, his words were not convincing at all.

He took a moment to think before he messaged the group and delayed the scenario by half an hour.

The reason being: Some teammates can not arrive to scenario on time due to real life reasons, the scenario entering time has be delayed by half an hour.

Ding-

The message was successfully sent.

Just as he was about to close the system menu, a message from his friend list popped up.

Wei Wendong opened it and saw it was a video question from Yue Hui. He was a friend he met through the game playing the summoner class. Because they got along, they met a few times offline and became friend in real life. He later became part of Kings Club.

Yue Hui was just a casual player; a boss of a company in real life. Other than having better equipment, his level and skill was mediocre.

"Old Wei, what do you think?" The moment the video message connected, Yue Hui immediately asked.

"What can I think?" Wei Wendong rolled his eyes and laughed. "I'm used to Future Group's ridiculous technologies."

Although he sounded like he was untouched, he was still stunned.

"There are presale buildings, are you not going to take a look?"

"I can't afford it! A house here probably is at least in the millions range. I'm just taking a look out of curiosity, perhaps I will visit in the future."

"Eh? This is not something Wei Million in our clan said," Yu Hui joked, "ten million is at most half of your annual salary."

The news of Kings Boss signing Shadow King at a hefty price of 20 million created a big splash in the professional scene. At first, they thought the investment was not worth it since twenty million was too much. But they had to agree later that the boss had the foresight.

It was a worldly MMORPG.

100 million active players globally!

Just in half a year, Shadow King used his superb gaming sense and experience through the internal test to win over 30 million in profits for Kings! Nothing else, and just in the monthly PVP competition without level restriction, the top ten players' ID could include the club's name and sponsor.

The ad placement could even influence the stock price of a public company!

In this digitalized era, if executed properly, intellectual property is money.

Of course, that is another topic.

"Nah, you make more money through your business and you can spare change to buy something here. I only know how to play games. I'd be beggar if I went to a foreign country."

"Xin is not considered a foreign country, there are more and more Hans going there, you can just pretend you went to Guangzhou. And playing the game is the same everywhere. I plan to buy a place there since they said you could request a refund at any time." Yu Hui smiled.

"I'll consider it."

After ending the call, Wei Wendong began to consider his friend's suggestion seriously. But after given it some thought, it would be too rushed of a decision. Buying a house was something related to him forming a family and it must be well thought out. Now that his savings were enough to purchase a small mansion in Wanghai, it was not necessary to live overseas at all.

Although he admitted that the futuristic style of the city did attract someone young like him.

He followed Xiao Yu on the main path. However when Wei Wendong scanned his surroundings and felt somewhat lost.

Just like what Future Group promoted, the place was highly futuristic, and because of this, the hologram projections and buildings overwhelmed him.

Xiao Yu saw that he was lost, flew to his ear, and whispered.

"Any tourist coming into Penglai can obtain digitalized glasses. Because we are currently in virtual reality, the glasses have been hidden by us. If there is a need, you can call it out through the system menu."

Based on Xiao Yu's instructions, Wei Wendong selected the glasses icon in the menu. Light particles began to gather in his hand before a pair of glasses formed in his palm.

Wei Wendong played with the glasses before putting it on his nose.

It was light, the lenses were thin, and wearing it didn't feel like anything.

The sight stopped at the map and a scene that shocked him appeared. Light blue particles formed a path underneath his feet and extended to the target he selected on the map.

He blankly stared at the cursor on the ground, took off the glasses, and the cursor disappeared. He put it back on and the cursor reappeared.

Magical!

A word surfaced in his head.

"Could this be… Augmented Reality?"

He remembered Microsoft's HoloLens glasses had a similar function, but he didn't know if they achieved Future Technology's level that could mark the route to the target location in three dimensional space.

"That's right." Xiao Yun smiled.

"Can I ask another question? Are you a live support?"

"Xiao Yu is an AI," Xiao Yu put her hands beneath her chin, whipped her tail, and said with a smile. "As long as you wear the Augmented Reality glasses, you can have a Xiao Yu that belongs to just you."

Wei Wendong was silent for a while before he let out a sigh.

"Your boss is a genius… virtual reality + real estate, and an artificial intelligence salesperson that is more similar to human than human. It's impossible not to make money."

"Thank you for your compliment," Xiao Yu blinked her eyes and said in a cute voice.

They took a trip around the main street. In front of a community center, Wei Wendong stopped and examined the apartment building.

At the door, he saw a hologram screen with a row of organized stickers.

"For sale?" He muttered the words on the hologram screen.

"Penglai's municipality management is digitalized, your local assets and real estates are all connected to your personal ID and could be managed through a special port. For example, the hologram screen in front of the apartment could be used to purchase or sell real estate, the information will also be synchronized to other areas…" Xiao Yun patiently explained to him. 

Just then, the sticker changed from green to orange, "For sale" turned into "Bid: 10,000".

"This is?"

"Because the ownership of the property currently belongs to Future Group, all initial sales are done through a bidding system. The level 1 property is only 80 square meters and the starting bid price is 10 thousand US dollars," Xiao Yu explained.

But because there were a lot of properties, only people that want to live on the same floor bided. The bid must be at the minimum 1,000 US dollars and the deal is locked after three days.

"It is only 10,000 US dollars?" Wei Wendong murmured to himself.

"Each user can only purchase one unit of level 1 or 2 properties; only properties above level 3 allow multiple units to be purchased, but there are still restrictions that apply," Xiao Yu reminded.

From the map, there were 200,000 units of level 1 property on sale, mostly distributed in the outer ring area. The level 2 property had a higher price tag and was closer to the middle of the ring. All in all, the price was higher closer to the center, but there were exceptions. For example, the seaside mansions on the outermost ring were the highest level 5 properties with prices comparable to the center zone.

Wei Wendong checked out the price of the giant tower and was stunned by the number.

The room at the top of the tower was one billion US dollars, but it had a grey sticker which meant it was sold to the public.

And the bottom of the tower… that's right, there was a underwater portion of the tower as the entire island was like a gyro and the room deepest in the water was the tip of the gyro. The spiral-shaped room was surrounded by water and had a price tag of ten billion US dollars.

Still not sold to the public…

[The price must be randomly inputted! Since they don't plan to sell anyways!] Wei Wendong ridiculed in his mind.

"What if this city's construction ultimately failed? I remember it is still under construction under water."

"Future Group will provide a full refund." Little Rain smiled. "Future Group will use its global assets to act as collateral to all investors; we definitely can afford it.

With Future Group's cash, there was indeed no need to worry about bankruptcy. Wei Wendong with a bitter smile shook his head; he was worried about a foolish question.

"Will there really be people living here?" Looking at Xiao Yu, he asked the most critical question.

If a city has only buildings without any people, it is just a ghost city.

"From the property in bidding, 110,000 people are planning to settle here. Based on Future Group's development plan, the ocean city's development focus will be on tourism and research. Once Penglai City is completed, it will be moved to the central sea region between Coro Island and Ange Island, because there will be convenient transport planes and ships, the residents on the island can freely work on any island in Xin," Xiao Yu then added. "Just like taking public transportation."

"Like the Venice of the Sea?" Wei Wendong murmured to himself and scanned his surroundings once more.

The environment here was gorgeous. To be honest, he was tempted. But considering that even if he lived in Wanghai, he could come here through the helmet at any time, his longing for Penglai decreased by a bit more…

But then, he suddenly noticed a countdown timer at the bottom right.

"What's the timer for?"

"Oh, that." Xiao Yu covered her mouth and made an impression as if she almost forgot about something, "This is the time a user can remain in this virtual reality."

"Time remaining? Wait… that means—"

"That's right." Xiao Yu flew directly in front of him, stopped, and looked at him with grin, "The advertisement time is only 30 minutes, purchasing property and applying for travel can all be done through the Phantom Helmet. If you want you see Xiao Yu and Penglai City, please wait for its completion."

[Fu*k! Limited time experience again!]

But before Wei Wendong finished cursing, everything surrounding him shattered.

In two short seconds, he returned to the pure white cube.

Facing the empty virtual reality room, he was speechless for a long time.