When the full-dive online game Tomb Raider Spirit Pact recreates the tomb-raiding world of Republican-era China, no one knows that the game has already become inextricably bound to reality.
Lin Yu, an ordinary man burdened by a secret after accidentally excavating an ancient tomb, is thrown into an eerie, empty beginner’s village on the day the game launches. A dry well reflects a talking shadow; hidden inside the hollow of an old pagoda tree is a secret text that can awaken the Yin Eye. As he chops through the seventh iron lock before midnight, the golden mark on his wrist suddenly begins to burn...
"Congratulations on awakening the hidden class ‘Yin Eye.’ Skills acquired: [Corpse Speech] [Illusion Break]"
While others become Daoist priests or feng shui masters, he can talk to zombies. While others form parties to grind monsters, his [Lone Fiend] trait lets him brave deadly tombs alone. From abandoned villages to level-three towns, from bronze coffins to dragon-patterned underground palaces, every mechanism he solves in the game echoes the disappearance of cultural relics in the real world.
The verdigris on a city-building decree conceals a code for reducing resource costs. The beam of light from a level 150 class change pierces the dimensional wall. While players fight over iron and bronze tokens, Lin Yu discovers that the spirit pact he made in the game can summon thousand-year-old corpses into reality.
"Warning: Player Night Shadow, your in-game actions have caused an anomaly in reality."
This is no virtual adventure. It’s a tomb-raiding frenzy with lives on the line. When the teleportation arrays in the five great cities glow blood red, he finally understands: online gaming is nothing more than a tomb-raiding passage between the worlds of Yin and Yang.
