I might have been playing a fake cultivation game.

Section 003 Herb Collection

On the phone screen, the burly Captain Chen nodded, his gaze sweeping over everyone. Even through the screen, Zhou Yunshen could feel the sharpness in Captain Chen's eyes.

Then Captain Chen said, "Everyone knows the rules. Once we're in the mountains, don't stray too far from me. If you encounter any spirits or monsters, don't provoke them. Immediately warn me, and I'll come and handle it. Do you understand?"

"Understood!" everyone replied.

Captain Chen added, "When we return from gathering the herbs, it'll be the same old routine. I'll make my selections first, and I'll take 30% of the herbs. You can keep 70%. Anyone who has objections can leave now."

No one chose to quit.

Zhou Yunshen couldn't help but complain: "Damn it! Everyone has to share 30% of the spoils with you, and you even get to pick the best parts first. That's so unfair!"

But the thought that the NPCs in the game could hear what he was saying made Zhou Yunshen subconsciously cover his mouth with his hand.

"Just bear with it and see how things go."

Next, Zhou Yunshen controlled his character and followed the others into the mountains.

This mountain is densely forested and overgrown with grass, and the mountain path is rugged and looks very difficult to walk.

Fortunately, Zhou Yunshen could control his character to travel by simply swiping his finger across the screen, so even if the mountain roads were difficult to navigate, it didn't really matter to him.

They walked for more than an hour in the mountains and forests.

Even lying in a warm bed, Zhou Yun Shen was on the verge of collapse.

While the game's graphics are exquisite, it's like a bare-bones house, lacking many useful system functions.

First of all, it lacks an automatic pathfinding function.

Secondly, there is no game map.

Then, the task interface could not be found, leaving Zhou Yun Shen somewhat bewildered, not knowing what to do next.

The good news is that the game doesn't currently have a shop option, nor does it have a window for watching short videos to claim in-game items.

The bad news is that over the past hour, the character's hunger level has been gradually increasing, and the status has changed from slightly hungry to moderately hungry.

I don't know what the game designers were thinking. I've been running around the map for an hour and we still haven't reached our destination.

In this era where fast food is popular in every industry, there are probably very few players who can stick with a game with such a slow pace.

After all, there are just too many games to choose from on the market, so one more won't make a difference.

Let alone others, even Zhou Yun Shen was struggling to keep going, only managing to stay afloat thanks to his sheer curiosity.

Another half hour passed, and finally, Captain Chen, who was walking at the front, stopped by a stream and said, "Let's gather herbs in this area today. Remember, don't stray too far from me. If you encounter any monsters or demons, run away immediately and warn me!"

Everyone nodded in agreement.

At this moment, Zhou Yunshen, sitting in front of his phone screen, would yawn every now and then.

The characters in the game all have their hunger levels turning red.

The young man who had called him in the village earlier came over, handed him a flatbread, and said, "Erzhu, have something to eat first."

"Okay, thank you, Dashan." Zhou Yunshen said as he controlled his character to take the hard pancake.

Yes, the young man in front of you is named Dashan.

When he was traveling earlier, someone called him Dashan (Big Mountain), and Zhou Yunshen silently remembered this nickname.

"No need to thank me, we've been friends since we were kids, don't be so polite," Da Shan waved his hand and said.

Zhou Yunshen controlled his character to start eating the hard biscuit in his hand, and the crunching sound was quite obvious.

"Erzhu, would you like to go herb gathering together this time?" Dashan extended an invitation.

"You go first, I'll eat something, rest for a bit, and then go gather herbs," Zhou Yunshen said.

His reasoning was reasonable, and the young man named Dashan nodded upon hearing this, saying, "Alright, then you be careful on your own later, don't risk climbing those cliffs, you still have a little girl at home who needs your care."

"Little girl?"

Does this mean this character has a younger sister?

"It doesn't matter, it's just a game character." Zhou Yunshen didn't care.

After the character finished eating the hard pancake and the hunger level dropped back to slightly hungry, Zhou Yun Shen quit the game.

Then, Zhou Yunshen clicked the Xuan Yuan Invasion game icon again and entered the game.

He rubbed his eyes, which were red from staying up late, and widened them, trying to clear his mind.

As a result, he still did not see the game's account login interface.

Upon launching the game, the interface immediately transforms into an ancient gray door, which then opens to both sides, revealing the character on the phone screen.

"Why...why isn't there an account login screen?"

"There's no account login screen. How will I log in to the game if I change phones?"

Zhou Yunshen refused to believe it and logged out and logged back into the game.

The result was still the same; the account login interface was nowhere to be seen.

He frowned, wanting to contact the game's customer service.

However, there are very few buttons in this game, and there is no button to contact customer service at all.

"This crappy game is only half-developed and it's already embarrassing to release it. Isn't it even going to be tested?" Zhou Yunshen couldn't help but complain to himself again.

After all this commotion, Zhou Yunshen's drowsiness was also dispelled.

Zhou Yunshen then forced himself to stay focused and continued playing the game.

He controlled the character, wandering around the mountains and forests.

One aspect of this game is that it's relatively player-friendly.

That is, as long as the character controlled by the player gets close to some plants, the information of these plants will appear in the form of text. Although the text that appears is brief, it is enough for Zhou Yunshen to distinguish whether the plants in front of him are valuable or whether they are medicinal herbs or weeds.

More than an hour later, Zhou Yunshen, controlling his character, had collected quite a few medicinal herbs, filling the entire basket.

However, they were all ordinary medicinal herbs; I didn't see any of the spiritual plants and elixirs commonly found in fantasy games.

Zhou Yunshen discovered that time in this game moved very slowly, seemingly in a 24-hour day as well.

Time passed by, and Zhou Yunshen endured it for a while longer, but he couldn't stay awake any longer. With his phone screen still lit up, he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

In his sleep, he vaguely heard a voice: "Found him, Erzhu is here!"

"Erzhu has fainted."

"Erzhu, Erzhu, wake up!"

"Someone, please carry him back..."

The next day, when Zhou Yunshen woke up, it was already nine o'clock in the morning.

"Damn it, I'm late, I'll get my pay docked again, and my phone's dead." Zhou Yunshen rubbed his head in frustration.

A corporate slave like him has no right to stay up all night playing games.

That noon, Zhou Yunshen had lunch with his two colleagues from the company as usual.

"Yun Shen, why are you late today?" Liu Yihang asked casually.

"Could it be that he stayed up all night watching porn?" Fatty Li Wang said, winking.

Zhou Yun Shen rolled his eyes at him and said, "I stayed up all night playing games last night, the one I came across before."

"Is this game really that fun that you're staying up all night to play it?" Liu Yihang asked.

Zhou Yunshen said, "I wouldn't say it's fun, but the graphics in the game are very exquisite and realistic, extremely realistic. You can even talk to the NPCs directly without needing a chat box."

"You're kidding, right? I heard you say before that this game is only a couple hundred megabytes in size. How can such a small game have any fancy graphics? Pixel-style graphics?" Li Wang looked unconvinced.

Liu Yihang also looked incredulous.

"I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying to you." Zhou Yunshen said, taking out his phone and saying, "If you don't believe me, I'll show you how it works."