Mu Sichen received an email.

“Dear Player, your upright and outstanding performance in town-building has set you apart. ‘My Ideal Town’ cordially invites you to participate in our closed beta. If you are willing to assist us in crafting the ultimate sanctuary, please follow the link below to provide your personal information, mailing address, and contact details.”

Mu Sichen was a twenty-year-old sophomore. Provided it didn’t interfere with his studies, he often took on part-time gigs as a “power-leveler” to cover his living expenses.

A few days prior, he had stumbled upon My Ideal Town, a title yet to hit the market. Seeing a recruitment notice for beta testers on the official website, he’d played through a small trial instance. His performance was top-tier, and the invitation arrived shortly thereafter.

Since modern games required real-name registration anyway, Mu Sichen didn’t overthink it. He clicked the link and filled in his data.

After submitting, he spent some time browsing the game’s official introduction. The developers claimed the game utilized a revolutionary VR technology that achieved true “Full-Dive” standards—a breakthrough they promised would redefine the era.

Mu Sichen didn’t buy it.

VR was trendy, and the immersion provided by high-end headsets was already quite realistic. Mu Sichen had played plenty of them. But the more he learned about the industry, the more he understood how insurmountable the hurdle of a true Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) actually was. Genuine full-dive gaming was a distant dream.

Besides, the official website looked dismal and drab. The trial instance had felt budget-tier, and the promotional posters didn’t feature a cozy, picturesque town; instead, they showcased a desolate, apocalyptic wasteland.

However, participating in a closed beta meant racking up invitation codes. Once the game officially launched, those codes and veteran accounts could be flipped for a decent profit. Mu Sichen wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip by.

As he was studying the game’s lore, his phone rang.

It was a courier. The delivery man asked Mu Sichen to meet him at the security gate to sign for a package, noting that it was exceptionally large.

When Mu Sichen arrived at the gate, he realized “large” was an understatement. The packaging was the size of a twin bed.

“When did I order something this massive?” Perplexed, he checked the shipping label. The sender was the My Ideal Town Sales Department. The item description: Gaming Pod.

It had been less than two hours since he submitted his address. The sudden arrival of such a high-end piece of hardware sparked a flicker of genuine confidence in the “Full-Dive” claims.

After repeatedly promising the security guard that he hadn’t purchased a treadmill, a sofa, or a massage chair—and swearing it wouldn’t violate dorm regulations—Mu Sichen hauled the massive crate back to his room.

Fortunately, it was summer break. His roommates were away, leaving Mu Sichen alone with enough floor space to accommodate the pod.

To his surprise, despite its size, the crate was incredibly light—almost as if it were filled with styrofoam. He began to suspect the “gaming pod” was nothing more than a cheap plastic shell.

But when he pried the packaging open, the sight inside stunned him. The silver-gray pod possessed a sleek, metallic luster. The casing was lightweight yet incredibly rigid. He couldn’t fathom what kind of “black tech” could produce a material so aesthetic, durable, and weightless all at once.

If they could manufacture a pod like this, Mu Sichen began to believe that this truly was a full-dive experience beyond modern capabilities.

An advanced piece of tech like this… once the game goes public, the beta account and the hardware will be worth a fortune.

The thought sent a jolt of excitement through him. He followed the manual, quickly set up the pod, and climbed inside.

Standing at 180cm, he found the interior of the pod contoured perfectly to his frame—not a centimeter too large or too small. Mu Sichen sealed the hatch, donned the internal VR headset, and impatiently tapped Start Game.

The moment the pod initialized, the world spun. His mind went blank, and he felt a terrifying sensation of losing all motor control over his limbs.

He didn’t panic, though. The manual had mentioned this was a standard reaction during the BCI synchronization—a process that shouldn’t last more than a second.

Mu Sichen instinctively shut his eyes. Once the vertigo subsided, he slowly opened them.

What he saw made his heart skip a beat.

He was no longer in his dorm. He was standing in a single-room apartment roughly twenty square meters in size. The curtains were drawn tight, and no lights were on. Instead, the four walls emitted a faint, ghostly white glow, providing just enough light to see the shadows.

He pushed aside the gloom of his surroundings, captivated by the sheer realism. He tried running, jumping, and kicking; the control over his “body” was identical to reality. He even pinched his cheek—it actually hurt.

If not for the system screen hovering in front of him, Mu Sichen would have been convinced he’d truly transmigrated.

The holographic display floated in mid-air. At the very top, a timer was ticking down.

[Newbie Protection Period: 00:09:27]

It seemed he had a ten-minute grace period, and he’d already wasted over thirty seconds.

As a veteran gamer, Mu Sichen knew that early-game perks were vital. He immediately ceased his “calisthenics” and focused on the system prompts.

[Player, please select your Starting Tool immediately. Your starting tool is your primary equipment and weapon in the early stages, and it determines your initial attribute bias. Please choose carefully: Sickle, Sledgehammer, Rope, Six-shot Revolver, Pickaxe, Folding Shovel, Wheelbarrow…]

There was a wide variety, but aside from the eerie inclusion of a gun, most were agricultural or labor tools.

Mu Sichen deduced that the choice was linked to stats. A sickle likely boosted attack; a rope implied crowd control; a gun favored speed and range.

To choose correctly, he had to understand the game’s core mechanics. The problem was, he still wasn’t entirely sure what kind of game My Ideal Town was.

The trial instance he’d played was a bit like Plants vs. Zombies, but inverted. He had controlled a cluster of grass, turning the zombies guarding a house into fertilizer. The more fertilizer he gathered, the more the lawn expanded, until the zombies were eradicated and the house was reclaimed.

After reclaiming the house, he had to gather materials and stamina to trim the lawn, rebuild the structure, and plant flowers.

The first half was a strategy puzzle; the second half was a building sim.

Since that trial was used to screen beta testers, the main game had to share some DNA with it—even if the gap between a simple puzzle game and this hyper-realistic environment felt like night and day.

Logic suggests a dual-loop: territory conquest followed by base defense, Mu Sichen mused. Essentially, winning the world, then ruling it.

With that in mind, the pros and cons of each tool became clear.

Weapons like the gun were excellent for early-game skirmishes, but they offered zero utility for construction later on. The sledgehammer favored pure destruction. The sickle was balanced but lacked construction versatility. The wheelbarrow was useless in a fight.

The Pickaxe was a dual-purpose steel tool for quarrying, paving, and mining. One side was pointed for piercing attacks; the other was flat for tilling soil. Its length provided a decent reach, ensuring enemies couldn’t easily close in. A folding shovel was similar, but it lacked the “heft” of a pickaxe for raw damage.

Mu Sichen played it safe. He selected the Pickaxe.

As soon as he confirmed his choice, a pickaxe appeared in the corner of the room, leaning quietly against the wall as if it had been there all along.

The apartment felt unnervingly cold. A chill was slowly creeping up his limbs, but as he gripped the long handle of the pickaxe, the freezing sensation receded slightly.

This game was undeniably dark. It radiated a pervasive sense of foreboding.

The pickaxe had spawned near the window. Behind the curtains, Mu Sichen could see a faint glimmer of light. It looked bright outside; the room was only dark because the curtains were so effective at blocking out the sun.

He reached out, intending to draw them back and see the world outside.

Suddenly, the screen flashed a jarring, visceral red. The Newbie Protection timer had dropped to three minutes. The red warning light pulsed rhythmically.

Mu Sichen abandoned the curtains and turned back to the screen to finish the tutorial.

Upon selecting his tool, his attribute panel appeared. As expected, his Stamina and Defense caps were higher than his Speed and Attack. He had also gained a “Newbie Skill.”

[Congratulations, Player, on obtaining the Starting Tool: [Pickaxe]. You have acquired the skill: [Undermine / Digging at the Foundations].]

Looking at the skill name, Mu Sichen felt that compared to the high-tech gaming pod, the terminology in My Ideal Town was a bit… rustic. He wondered if it would upgrade later.

Undermining—literally digging out the base of a wall to collapse the whole structure. In a modern context, it also meant “poaching” talent or secrets from a competitor.

Currently, the skill was Level 1 and only provided basic digging functions. However, Mu Sichen analyzed that at higher levels, it might evolve into the ability to seize an opponent’s minions or skills.

The timer hit two minutes. The white light from the walls was fading. He tapped through the menus at high speed.

The system didn’t ask him to customize his appearance or choose a class. Instead, it laid out the primary objective and displayed a map.

Initial Mission: Locate the “Pillar” of the current town. Find a way to establish your first Safe House to ensure the player’s survival.

Mu Sichen felt a prickle of unease. Ensure the player’s survival? Usually, games warned you about eye strain or “addiction prevention.” Why was it phrased so lethally?

Before he could dwell on it, the timer hit the final sixty seconds. A map flickered onto the screen.

Realizing how crucial this was, he committed it to memory. This wasn’t just a map of a single town, but a vast territory dotted with various settlements. Most were grayed out. Only the largest town in the center was illuminated.

Ten seconds left.

The white light on the walls began to flicker like a dying bulb.

In the final second, Mu Sichen finalized his mental map and reached for the “Next” button. As he did, he noticed the “Exit Game” button in the bottom right corner was blinking erratically.

Before he could process the anomaly, the timer hit zero.

The “Exit Game” button vanished. The white light on the walls died instantly.

The room plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness. Only the faint glow of the system screen remained, casting a pale, ghostly light across his face.

Mu Sichen felt a sudden, inexplicable sensation—as if a thousand eyes were quietly watching him from the shadows.

He tapped the bottom right corner of the screen.

The “Exit Game” button did not reappear.