An utterly ordinary day. After finishing work for the day, Bai Luoyin returned home only to find someone sprawled across the large sofa in the living room. A phone rested on her chest. It was obvious that she had fallen asleep while scrolling on her phone, causing it to slip down onto her chest.

And somehow, the phone hadn't woken her up! More importantly, what was this person doing at her house, scrolling on her phone in the first place?

Bai Luoyin was about to simply call out and wake her up, but then another idea suddenly occurred to her.

Bai Luoyin went to the kitchen and grabbed a stainless-steel basin and a soup spoon. She then stood in front of Su Lingyan and started banging the basin as hard as she could.

Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!

"Time to get up~" Bai Luoyin shouted.

Su Lingyan kept her eyes closed, showing no sign of waking up whatsoever.

"You're still not getting up?" Bai Luoyin leaned closer.

"Ha!" The person on the sofa suddenly sprang up and let out a loud yell.

"Ah!" Bai Luoyin jumped back in fright.

"Got you!" Su Lingyan took the basin and spoon away from her.

"So you were already awake and just pretended to be asleep so you could scare me?" Bai Luoyin crossed her arms.

"Mhm." Su Lingyan nodded before putting the kitchenware back in the kitchen.

"I'm angry!" Bai Luoyin said, putting on an exaggeratedly aggrieved expression.

"Okay." Su Lingyan leaned closer. "So what do I have to do to make you stop being angry?"

"Play a dungeon with me right now," Bai Luoyin said. This was something they had agreed to do a few days ago.

"Of course." Su Lingyan readily agreed.

They lay down in their gaming pods and entered the game.

Over the past few days, both Su Lingyan and Bai Luoyin had cleared dungeons on their own, and their levels had increased accordingly. Leveling was especially fast in the early stages. Su Lingyan was now Level 7, while Bai Luoyin was Level 6.

The two chose Team Mode.

"Matching in progress..."

"Match successful. Generating dungeon..."

"Loading complete. Team size for this session: 5 players. "

Inside a stretch limousine sat Su Lingyan, Bai Luoyin, and three other players. One was a woman, while the other two were men. None of them appeared to know one another.

The woman had a pair of large, round eyes, and she currently looked rather nervous. Her in-game name was Echo.

Of the two men, one was named Sunny Boy. He wore a bright, cheerful smile that matched his username perfectly. The other, Kairo, had little expression on his face, and his looks were noticeably above average.

Karo? Su Lingyan felt like she had seen this person somewhere before.

Then, they all received the background information for the dungeon.

Ekil Manor was a manor located deep in the mountains. The owner of the villa, Kylar Reiner, lived a secluded life and often randomly sent invitations to people because he felt lonely. You were among the lucky ones chosen. Although there were rumors that most people invited to Echil Manor had disappeared, all food and lodging would be provided free of charge, and you would also receive ten thousand US dollars. Naturally, you accepted the invitation.

"Naturally accepted? My ass! Isn't this obviously a scam? He's definitely up to no good! Going there even though you know something's wrong? That's the standard opening to a horror movie!" Sunny Boy couldn't help complaining after reading the dungeon background.

"But... that's ten thousand dollars." Echo spoke hesitantly. Although it certainly sounded like a scam, it was ten thousand dollars, after all. It wasn't exactly surprising that someone might be unable to resist the temptation.

"What if I told you that I'd give you one hundred thousand dollars if you quit the game right now? Would you quit?" Su Lingyan asked with a beaming smile.

"Really?" Sunshine Boy's eyes lit up.

"I could quit..." Echo said quietly.

"Hmm..." Bai Luoyin was trying to figure out what her friend really meant. She knew that Su Lingyan genuinely had the financial means to do that, even though she was probably just joking.

They were neighbors, but in reality, both apartments belonged to Su Lingyan. They were luxury apartments as well, and Bai Luoyin had been able to move in at half the market rent by virtue of being her friend.

Su Lingyan also owned other properties. When they had gone out together before, Bai Luoyin had even seen one of her villas.

"You must be joking, right? We're a team, not competitors. There's no benefit to getting someone to quit," Karo said.

"Of course. You didn't actually believe me, did you?" Su Lingyan said. She had only been asking for fun.

"Of course I didn't! I didn't!" Sunshine Boy's eyes darted away. He had only been tempted for a tiny little moment.

"So it really wasn't true..." Echo looked a little disappointed.

He really believed her...? Is this why scams are so rampant? Karo thought to himself.

"By the way, that manor's name is pretty lazy, too. Ekil Manor? Isn't that just the word 'like' spelled backward—'ekil'?" Su Lingyan said.

"It really is!" Bai Luoyin took a closer look at the background information.

"I can understand it. Maybe they just couldn't be bothered to come up with a name. Oh, wait, I just remembered." Su Lingyan looked at Kairo. "You're a gaming streamer, aren't you?"

Finally, someone recognized me. Kairo thought. He nodded. "That's right. My in-game name is the same as my online name."

In real life, Kairo was a gaming streamer with nearly a million followers. His streams usually focused on action games, with the occasional simple puzzle game.

As the first holographic game, Anomaly Zone had attracted an unimaginable amount of attention. On its very first day, tens of millions of people around the world flooded into the game, yet the servers somehow didn't crash. This demonstrated just how far Zero Corporation, the company behind Anomaly Zone, was ahead of its competitors technologically. No—having developed the world's first holographic game, Zero Corporation was already leagues ahead of the rest of the industry in terms of technology.

The arrival of the world's first holographic game  game also signaled a shift in the gaming industry's direction. In the future, holographic game  games would very likely become mainstream. As a gaming streamer, Kairo had decided to gradually shift his focus toward Anomaly Zone.

According to Zero Corporation, the streaming feature would be available soon, although it would come with quite a few restrictions.