Chapter 5: Reward for First Clear

The first thing that appeared before Hua Yibing’s eyes was not the anticipated underwater world, but the familiar character customization interface.

“Got excited for nothing,” he sighed exaggeratedly. “I almost forgot I have to create a character first.”

The bullet comments immediately became active.
Hua Yibing glanced at them, then turned his attention back to the character in front of him.

“This model is absolutely amazing, it’s just like looking in a mirror!”
He circled the three-dimensional character in front of him several times like a puppy.
The level of detail was perfect, from height to looks, to even the degree of fading dye in his hair—it was all identical!

[It really is! This game is worth the price just for the character models!]

[Two Huahuas! Cuteness x2!! Ahhh, I’m dead!]

Hua Yibing tried adjusting the data on the side and continued to introduce it to the viewers in the stream room.
“It looks like you can only adjust some minor details, like skin tone and hair color. This means the character model only allows you to dye it, not modify it. This might not be very friendly to some players.”

[No way? Otaku terrified! This would be so awkward if I run into someone I know…]

[Why do other games let you change your appearance freely, but Sea Realm has to be different? What a crappy game, I advise everyone not to buy it.]

[Hot take, Sea Realm is only in closed beta, it hasn’t even gone on sale yet.]

While the bullet comments were discussing, Hua Yibing had already tried several different hair colors for himself, all of which he had never tried before.

The bullet comments instantly derailed—

[Huahua, stop it! Mom won’t allow you to play games with s-yellow hair!]

[This forgiving green is so blinding, save me streamer, don’t do it!]

[Hahahahahaha this sparkling pink is killing me, I’ll gift you a spaceship, let’s go with this color!!]

Hua Yibing’s hand paused, and he decisively selected the pink from just now.

“To the little bro who just said he’d send a spaceship, I’m choosing sparkling pink today. Where’s your spaceship?”

The other person actually didn’t go back on their word and decisively sent a spaceship.
As if afraid he’d change his mind, they even sent it three times in a row.

[66666 Thank you, boss, the boss is generous.]

[So envious, so envious, fifteen thousand to buy the streamer’s hair color. So it’s true that money can do whatever it wants.]

Hua Yibing had only intended to tease that bullet comment and liven up the stream room’s atmosphere, but he hadn’t expected the person to actually send it, and to send three spaceships at that.

“My goodness, the boss must really want to see me with this pink hair,” he carefully looked at the character model of his pink-haired self and finally made a decision.
“I’ll listen to the boss! This is it!”

Then, not wanting to waste any more time on character creation, he frantically poked the “Next” option.
The character from just now instantly disappeared, replaced by a slowly unfurling sheepskin scroll.

On it, many precautions and terms were densely written in ornate script.
Young Hua didn’t even glance at it, directly checking the “read” box and skipping past it with a swipe.

The scroll turned into a golden light and shot into his body with a ‘swoosh’.

“Wow!”
Hua Yibing’s eyes lit up.
“This exit is a bit cool! It’s like magic. Whatever, whatever, let’s get into the game and see!”

He excitedly clicked the [Enter Game] button, and then felt the world spin around him, as if his soul was being dragged out of his body and thrown elsewhere.
He felt a strong sense of vertigo, the kind you only get on a roller coaster.

“Bleh, bleh, bleh!!”
As soon as Hua Yibing emerged from the spawn point, he knelt on the ground and dry-heaved continuously.
“I didn’t expect the first teleportation to be so intense. I thought the official’s warning was a lie.”

[?? Is it that bad, Huahua? Is there a problem with their product quality?]

[Hehe, I knew the game made by a garbage company would be garbage too.]

[Person above… stop complaining, you guys, look around…]

Hua Yibing raised his head and looked around with the entire stream room’s audience.
Although their coordinates, personalities, and ages were all different, they all held their breath at this moment without exception—could this level of realism actually exist!

As soon as Old Li emerged from the spawn point, he clutched his forehead in discomfort, already making a mental note—the vertigo from the first teleportation was too strong, suspected to be a game technical issue.

There was a loud, shouting, pink-haired punk next to him, who looked like a small-time streamer trying to create an effect for his live broadcast.
Even if the realism was a bit high, it wasn’t necessary to…

As he raised his head, the silent complaints in his mind came to an abrupt halt.

‘I was wrong.’

Old Li’s expression turned serious as he erased all his previous thoughts.

Right now, he just wanted to exclaim loudly like that punk, otherwise it wouldn’t be enough to express the shock in his heart.
The seawater flowed around him, and with a gentle push, he could feel the sluggish resistance.
The seaweed growing on the roadside and the small fish swimming past him were all so real they seemed like living creatures.
The models were so detailed that every vein, every scale was crystal clear!

And the spawn point he had just come from—

The giant fountain wasn’t spouting water, but translucent ribbons of seven-colored light, fluttering in circles in mid-air, then slowly converging at the bottom into a milky liquid spring.

This magical, beautiful, and common-sense-defying structure left Old Li so shocked he was speechless.

‘This is definitely not just A-grade!! It’s infinitely close to reality!!’

He wanted to get a closer look at the fountain’s structure, but unexpectedly found his feet seemed to be tied together.
In his haste, he tumbled to the ground with a splash.

Stunned, Old Li turned his head to look behind him, only to discover that his original two legs had turned into a slender, dark green fishtail!

‘Where are my legs??’
He was deeply shocked once again.
‘My two long legs that were just here??’

The fishtail behind him seemed to respond, slapping twice with a ‘thwack, thwack’, kicking up a pile of sand that sprayed all over his head and face.

[Welcome player to Sea Realm. Please complete the novice quest before exploring this magical sea!]

[Novice Quest (1): As a newborn of the merfolk, how can you not know how to swim? Please swim three laps around the Rainbow Fountain! Player’s current progress: (0/3)]

Old Li stared at the quest log for two minutes before confirming that this game really wasn’t joking with him.
When it said hardcore, it really meant hardcore!

He never expected that his first challenge in reviewing Sea Realm would be to first learn how to swim with a tail…

Old Li tried to stand up, jumped with all his might, and then desperately tried to control his tail, swinging it left and right—

Then he flopped onto the ground with a splat, scaring a passing small golden-red fish into scurrying away with its head in its fins.

‘No way, as an UP Master who creates guides, how can I be worse than a little goldfish!’

He redoubled his efforts, continuing to try to get himself to swim.
He was even smart enough to imitate the tail-flicking method of the small fish he had just seen—and the method actually worked!

Old Li was satisfied to see that he had moved forward fifty centimeters.
He then looked at the other players who were still dazedly exploring how to make their tails move, and felt that he could already see the hope of being the first to complete the quest.

As everyone knows, the first quest of every game has a first-completion reward.

“Hey, brother!!”

Someone greeted him enthusiastically.
Old Li turned his head to look, and his pupils instantly dilated.

The pink-haired guy who had been shouting just now was now lying on the ground without a care for his image.
Ignoring the cumbersome fishtail behind him, he was using his hands to pull his body forward, crawling rapidly.
From a distance, he looked as terrifying as some kind of aberrant titan.

But in just this short amount of time, the pink-haired guy had already gotten a huge lead on him with this method!

“Bye-bye, brother! I’ll be taking that first-completion reward, thank you very much!”

As he spoke, he seemed to speed up again, about to complete half a lap around the fountain!

Old Li looked at his own tail, then at his own arms, which were clearly much more robust than the young man’s—‘I’ll risk it! What’s my image! Can it compare to the first-completion reward!’

He also lay down on the ground and desperately crawled forward.

“…”
The corner of Sykes’s mouth twitched as he watched the two unidentified objects racing around the fountain by crawling in the magic mirror before him.
He resolutely refused to admit that their species was the noble merfolk.

[The players weren’t originally merfolk anyway. It was just Master’s insistence on turning their spiritual bodies into the shape of merfolk.]
Ella explained in a business-like manner.

“The subjects of the merfolk territory can naturally only be merfolk.”
Sykes was unusually insistent on this point.

Ella wisely did not continue to discuss this issue with him, but instead comforted Sykes.

[Master need not worry too much. According to Ella’s analysis, humans are a species with very strong learning abilities. They should be able to learn how to function as merfolk in no more than a day.]

“I hope so.”
He let out a sigh of relief.

However, Sykes’s relief was premature.

Human learning ability was indeed very powerful, but this did not mean they would necessarily strive in the right direction.

Within a short hour, the crawlers near the fountain had grown from two to a group.
Watching them, Sykes felt the tips of his tail twitch in pain along with his head.

He left the players’ subsequent activities for Ella to worry about.
Out of sight, out of mind, he flicked his tail and entered the laboratory to study the fifty portions of otherworldly energy he had just obtained.

Hua Yibing had never felt such regret!

As the smartest one in this group of players at the time, he should have quietly made a fortune on his own.
Why did he have to greet that guy who looked so honest, ahhhh!!

Young Hua’s face wrinkled up like a bun in anger.
He went to settle the score with the guy who had copied his idea halfway and even snatched his first-completion reward!

“Hey!!”
Hua Yibing blocked Old Li’s path, putting on the face of a bully.
“How could you plagiarize my method!”

At this time, the bullet comments in his stream room were also exceptionally active—

[Hahahahahaha, serves you right. Huahua actually messed up. That’s what you get for showing off to others!]

[This person has no martial virtue. I saw that he wanted to swim the three laps at first, but then he turned around and started imitating Huahua!]

[Can’t really blame others, right? Huahua’s method, although a bit silly, is really effective. It’s normal for others to learn it.]

[The rational and objective person, though late, has arrived.]

[Have you guys noticed that the later players all followed suit and started crawling on the ground? Hahahaha, I’m dying of laughter. I can never look at the story of The Little Mermaid the same way again.]

[Person in front, don’t run. I’m getting a mental image too. It must be as hard for the Little Mermaid to learn to walk like a human as it is for humans to learn to swim like a merman! Love is truly great!]

[All of you, sit down! Let me speak first! Does no one else find the person who surpassed Huahua a bit familiar?]

[Familiar +1]

[Holy crap, isn’t that the big UP Master Old Li from a certain site? Old Li actually came to play Sea Realm?]

[Person in front, does that mean there’s some tea?]

[Go search on Cloud Weibo yourself, Old Li and Sea Realm. All I can say now is—a dream come true for a fan of both!!]

No matter how wild the bullet comments were, the current Old Li didn’t know.

He calmly accepted the scolding from the pink-haired punk—objectively speaking, he couldn’t really be called a punk.
The kid probably wasn’t very old, and was quite cute.
His skin was also fair, and the pink hair wasn’t a total disaster on him, he just looked a bit too chuunibyou.

This praise contained a certain amount of guilt—after all, he had learned the method of movement that the other had thought of first, and had even surpassed him.

Old Li took out the first-completion reward the system had just given him from his backpack—a shiny golden machete—and extended an invitation to the little pink-hair.

“Hey, pink-haired kid, want to do the second quest together?”

“I’m not—”

Hua Yibing was about to curse a few more times, but he inadvertently glanced at the latest quest released by the system.

[Novice Quest (2): As a noble merman, how can you not have a place to live? Please gather Coral Wood x10 to repair the broken hut! Player’s current progress: (0/10)]

He looked at the machete that seemed perfect for chopping wood, and decisively changed his tune.
“I’ll go!!”