Chapter 0 “Special Invited Players Will Directly Enter the Butterfly Battle”...This meant that regardless of the final performance of these ten people, they had already taken up ten spots in the top 100.

On this final day before the preliminary round, Dream Inc.'s sudden announcement of such a malicious piece of news would undoubtedly cause significant dissatisfaction among the players.

Although every registrant harbored a sliver of hope that they might be invited, for the most part, they were all aware that the possibility was almost zero.

They risked life and limb in the Insect Battle, and their chances of qualifying depended on luck. But these people registered and went straight into the top 100, and could get a ranking and prizes even if they just phoned it in. What kind of logic was that?

And so, predictably, the forum exploded again.

Fortunately, the game company was prepared this time, and the function of limiting the number of posts in a certain time period was immediately enabled.

Even so, the number of posts still surged after 5 PM, and showed no signs of declining even at midnight.

A large number of conspiracy theorists jumped out, with posts like "Dream Inc. ignores the principle of fairness and predetermines rankings!", "Rich people directly buy the spots in the top 100?", "The so-called Peak Tournament is just a farce jointly orchestrated by studios and Dream Inc."... All kinds of malicious speculations emerged endlessly.

Although these posts were all completely unfounded, pure speculation and even nonsense, they still had many supporters.

During this time, Thriller Paradise's customer service department was basically paralyzed. Online customer service had been flooded with messages, and if they replied to each one in chronological order, it would take three working days to respond to the messages received in just these three hours. The phone customer service was even more overwhelmed, with all operators busy and only able to guarantee a response rate of less than 10%...

Clearly, the players all wanted an "explanation."

Finally, at 8 PM, after the players had been raising hell for a full three hours, Dream Inc.'s official website leisurely issued a supplementary announcement regarding the "Special Invited Players" matter.

[The special invited players in this competition are "seed players." That is: before entering the Peak Tournament stage, the ten players with the closest to zero probability of being eliminated under the established rules and competition system.

Separating the seed players from the Insect Battle and Cocoon Battle is a protective mechanism adopted by the organizers for other players.

Special invited players will be selected by the system. At zero o'clock on May 1st, the optical brain will complete the calculation and automatically announce the list.

For specific information, please continue to pay attention to the official website announcement.]

In a sense... this announcement was even more malicious than the previous one...

The players were already unhappy with the existence of these ten people, and now the game company was publicly saying, "These people are high-level experts recognized by the system as having a high probability of making it into the top 100, and not letting them participate in the preliminary rounds is to protect you."

This was simply putting the seed players on the fire to roast... If these ten people were truly strong to an outrageous degree, then so be it. But if their performance in the Butterfly Battle was not up to par or unremarkable, they would inevitably be subjected to malicious attacks and various rumors of corruption after the competition.

Fortunately... later facts proved that these ten guys were indeed all monsters...

...

At 8:15 PM that night, Feng Bujue logged into the game in non-sleep mode. The first thing he did after going online was to check his mail.

In the past few days, many strangers had sent Feng Bujue friend requests, as well as greetings and chatty emails. All of these people were members of "Order."

On the 24th, after Wu Si Can Xuan was dismissed by Feng Bujue in the mall, he went back and discussed it with Meng Jing Chan. The two quickly reached a consensus and basically confirmed that Feng Bujue was indeed the second-ranked player on the combat power rankings. Subsequently, they reported this matter to their superiors. The matter was immediately classified as top-level information within Order.

Thus, starting from the early hours of the 24th, Feng Bujue began to be intermittently harassed by Order Studio. Faced with this situation, Feng Bujue naturally ignored them all, deleting emails after a glance and rejecting all friend requests. His response was simple... before the other party made any requests, he nipped them in the bud.

But the other party didn't seem to have given up... they were still constantly trying to negotiate with Feng Bujue.

Speaking of the way Order Studio did things, it was really different from the path of the Gods. The Gods were straightforward, and after being decisively and resolutely rejected, they would no longer make futile attempts.

As for Order... Feng Bujue was very certain that they had a department similar to a "public relations department." Because in the emails and friend requests he had received in the past few days, many obviously feminine and very ambiguous IDs had appeared... The content of the emails gradually evolved from "I am so-and-so from Order, can I chat with you?" to "Feng Bujue *gege*, so-and-so (referring to themselves in the third person) can I chat with you?", and then to "I just want to get to know you, why are you ignoring me?"...

Every time Feng Bujue saw such emails, he would get goosebumps all over, feeling like he was being solicited by someone while passing by a red-light district... What shocked him the most was that after the negotiations with those feminine IDs failed, some strange IDs with unclear meanings such as "King's Man" and "Wig Man" also appeared to find him. It seemed that Order really wanted to get in touch with him... to the point where they would do anything.

"Ah... there's a new announcement..." After deleting the emails, Feng Bujue opened the official website through the touch screen again, "Hmm... seed players..." he muttered, "Speaking of which, according to the content of this announcement... I, who am at the top of the combat power rankings, might very well become one of the ten..." He pondered, "If this really happens, wouldn't my name be hung on the official website, instantly becoming the target of millions of players..."

Feng Bujue stroked his chin and thought, "But... since I participated in this competition, my strength will be exposed sooner or later... Even if I don't become a special invited player, with my strength, there is a high probability that I can enter the Cocoon Battle, and even the Butterfly Battle. The competitions at that time will be broadcast live and recorded, and the names of the opposing sides will be listed..." He sighed, "Is my low-key life coming to an end?... In as little as four hours, or as long as half a month, I will become a well-known player. What a pain..."

At this moment, a communication request popped up. It was Si Yu.

After Feng Bujue pressed accept, he said directly, "You're pretty early today."

"Bei Ling and Xiao Tan went to solo a slaughter game again." Si Yu replied, "Let's queue up first."

"Eh? Recently, the time they spend alone together seems to be particularly long..." Feng Bujue continued.

"What do you want to say?" Si Yu asked in her usual cold tone.

"Nothing... just saying." Feng Bujue became inexplicably nervous, sped up his speech, and even gave a wry smile after speaking.

"Hmph..." Si Yu made a rather strange laugh, which didn't quite sound like a sneer... and vaguely revealed a hint of inexplicable joy.

...

At the same time, in the real world, at Dream Inc.'s headquarters.

In the largest office in the entire building, Woody was comfortably leaning back in an executive chair, watching a chess match on a 70-inch LCD TV...

"Is it interesting to watch mortals play chess?" Vincent's figure suddenly appeared across the desk.

"Hehe... I'm not watching their chess." Woody replied, "I'm observing and trying to figure out their thinking patterns."

"Want to see 'human hearts'?" Vincent smiled, "Sitting in front of the screen, I'm afraid it's difficult to see that kind of thing."

"Did you come to disturb me from watching TV?" Woody asked.

"I came to confirm something with you..." Vincent said, "Are you really confident about this layout?"

"Hehehe... don't you think that question is boring..." Woody laughed.

"Yeah... you're always full of confidence..." Vincent sighed and continued, "But... are you overlooking something?" He paused, "The desire to fight is one of the most dangerous potentials of mankind... Are words like 'Special Invited Players' and 'Seed Players' too ostentatious? If you let those ten honestly start from the Insect Battle, they would definitely be able to easily pass through the levels and break through the Butterfly Battle to enter the top 50. But now... using this form to let them directly fight the Butterfly Battle, there may be unexpected situations."

"No no no..." Woody waved his finger, "Nothing can be called an accident." He covered his mouth and smirked, "Hehehe... whether the opponents value them or look down on them, victory is victory. The defeated are nothing more than that; the victors are the strong." He turned his head to look at Vincent, "Throughout history, in thousands of worlds... those who can trample everyone under their feet have always been people with extraordinary abilities. The weak can only depend on the strong, and constantly worship and imitate them. If they try to meddle with that high and mighty position, they have to see if they have the capacity and strength for it."

"Heh..." Vincent laughed, "How come that sounds like Simon's argument?"

"Because that's my argument... I just said it to Woody this morning." Simon's voice rang out. He was already standing by the floor-to-ceiling window in the room, hands in his pockets, solemnly looking out at the bustling city night scene, "Do you think... without my permission, that guy who 'hehehe' all day long would dare to act rashly?"

"Hmm... I understand." Vincent said, "From the perspective of a referee, it would be unfair to the other players if those ten started from the Insect Battle in a low-key manner."

"Hehehe... so... instead of worrying about those unnecessary 'accidents,' you should look forward to Origin's performance this time..." Woody pushed his white-glowing glasses with his middle finger and said to his two colleagues, "You also want to see if Feng Bujue can 'do it,' right?... Hehehehehe..."