10 September came quickly, which was the day Blacklight Biotechnology’s first electronic products for ordinary people, the V.1 Virtual Reality Series, went on sale.
In the early morning of this day, the physical stores of major retailers around the world were already crowded with thousands of people in long queues. They were waiting for the stores to open for business because, in these stores, the V.1 Series devices would be sold. Going for retail was the best choice for those who did not want to wait for an online mail order.
Of course, after seeing the long snaking queues, most people preferred a more comfortable online shopping service. Although the arrival of the goods was a bit slower, they did not have to queue for hours.
There were at least millions of people waiting in front of their computers. Initially, there should not have been so few potential users. However, the price of the V.1 Virtual Reality Series had prevented most people from buying it. Even in Mainland China, the cheapest V.1 Tactile Suit also required 4,500 yuan.
However, this suit was only an aid, after all. Without the V.1 Haptic Shock Helmet or Haptic Shock Chair, it could be said to be useless. The price of a helmet would then cost at least 13,000 yuan, and the haptic shock chair would require no less than 60,000 yuan.
The most important thing was that these products were not as necessary as mobile phones and cars, so not many people were willing to buy them right away. Most people were still waiting and watching.
However, even if most people were still on the sidelines, it was the world’s first batch of equipment with brainwave control technology. Thus, in the first batch of orders, the haptic shock helmet had reached 3.3 million units, the tactile suit had reached 2 million sets while the haptic shock chair had reached 800,000 units.
Even for the most expensive HP 3D Simulator, it had also received 5,000 orders.
Assuming the cost was one-half of the price, Chen Chen had harvested nearly ten billion USD in the first wave.
Moreover, after the first batch of the V.1 Series entered millions of households, just like the ubiquity of computers and mobile phones in the past, they would become a general trend of the times, an irresistible trend.
Nowadays, this slice of pie in the VR field could be said to be completely controlled by Blacklight Biotechnology. After more than ten years of fierce jostling and competition, Blacklight Biotechnology had swiftly unified the VR market with crushing momentum. By more than ten years in advance, it had ushered VR devices into a new era — the era of brainwave manipulation.
In North America and Europe, because they were going to arrest Chen Chen suddenly in December, there were practically no restrictions on Blacklight Biotechnology’s products at this time. Whether it was quality inspection or tariffs, Blacklight Biotechnology was given the green light all the way. To keep up appearances, they even sent a negotiating team to contact the Blacklight Biotechnology team to discuss the purchase of the brainwave manipulation technology.
Blacklight Biotechnology, naturally, also feigned civility, acting as if it knew nothing of its opponents’ plans.
Thus, in this seemingly harmonious atmosphere, the first batch of products was sold successfully and the buyers who got the goods began to happily try this unprecedented black technology product.
Mainland China, the downtown area of Shangdu City.
Two young men walked out of a VR store, sweating profusely. At the same time, they were each holding two cardboard boxes. Of the two cardboard boxes, one was cubic and one was flat. They were walking toward the parking lot holding the cardboard boxes while wearing elated expressions.
“Not a bad approach, Zhang Wei. You managed to score these when there are only three hundred units left in the city.”
Of the two youths, the handsome-looking one rejoiced. “I thought we’d go home empty-handed today.”
“Heh heh.”
The other young man who was tall and thin was so pleased, his nose was practically kissing the sky. A teasing glint came into his eyes. “You don’t know, Yang Jian, that when the owner of this physical store was living on the streets with nothing to eat, it was my father who rescued him.”
As he spoke, remembrance flitted in the eyes of the tall and thin young man. “A dozen years ago, my father gave him two pastries. He ate one and broke the other in two, handing one half to my father. He said that in the future, when he’s made it, as long as my father’s descendants bring this half of the pastry to him, he would do a favor for my father’s descendants.”
“So when the store said it was out of stock, you just took out that half of the pastry?”
The handsome young man was surprised. “Isn’t this a waste of a favor?”
“No, that pastry half had gone bad long ago and I’ve fed it to the dog.”
The tall and thin young man sneered. “The reason he sold it to me was that he still had not made it, so my father invested several million in him and allowed him to open this electronic store.”
The two came to the parking lot as they conversed. After they put the cardboard boxes in the trunk, they drove back to the campus.
Half an hour later, the car returned to Shangdu Jiao Tong University. The two ran to the door of Dorm 404 gleefully, holding the boxes. The tall and thin young man originally wanted to use his body to push open the door of the dormitory, but there was only a thud, for the dormitory door did not budge at all!
“Ouch!”
The tall and thin young man was bounced back to the ground and landed on his butt, but even so, he still held his two cardboard boxes firmly.
“My days, what are you guys doing? Whoever’s inside, open the door now!”
The tall and thin young man scolded at once.
“Password!”
Behind the door of Dorm 404, a bright loud voice came.
“Password my foot, hurry up and open the door!”
The handsome youth had come over, frowning.
“No way, you must say the password or you can’t enter!”
The voice inside was unyielding. “Let’s start with you!”
In desperation, the handsome young man looked around and when he saw that no one was paying attention, he lowered his voice and said, “I’m from Dachang City, the seventh middle school…”
“Too weak, again!”
“I can’t hear you!”
Two people yelled from within, their voices ringing through the door.
The handsome young man had to increase his volume. “Dachang City, student of the seventh middle school, Deity Yang Jian!”
“Very spirited, next one!”
The voice behind the door continued shouting.
“Dachang City, student of the seventh middle school, Your Grandpa Zhang Wei!”
The tall and thin young man yelled angrily, “Hurry up and open the door!”
“You want to get into the warship with such a soft voice!?”
“Our big brother in the dormitory said that if he can’t hear it, he can’t hear it!”
The voice continued shouting.
“That’s good enough.”
The handsome young man protested again and pushed violently, finally pushing the dormitory door open. The two people in the dormitory hurriedly hid in the toilet and locked the toilet door.
“Where’s the mop, I’m going to suffocate the two of them by blocking the toilet door.”
The tall youth said viciously.
“Go hunt for it then, I’m going to turn on the device.”
The handsome young man could not care less and immediately started unpacking, taking out a helmet and a black jumpsuit.
“My days, you guys really bought them?”
The toilet door cracked open and two people inside saw the handsome young man starting to unpack the cartons. They were immediately delighted. “O Great Noble Brothers, please accept the respects of your little brothers!”
“Bugger off. Just now you stopped us from coming in and now you call us your Great Brothers?”
The tall and thin young man waved them away.
“Brother Wei, don’t be like this. We were only joking just now… You must lend it to us too, we want to try the haptic shock helmet…”
“Brother Wei, can I go to your house to celebrate the New Year? Brother Wei, can you help me order a delivery?”
The two roommates kept joking shamelessly by one side.
Ignoring these buffoons, the handsome young man took the helmet out of the box on his own and saw that the helmet was dark gray all over, with a streamlined shape. Although the shell was fully plastic, it was pretty good in terms of being oleophobic. There would not be handprints left on it like many plastic objects.
The inside of the helmet was also very ergonomic, especially with internal sponge pads that were detachable. There was a fan in the front, back, left, and right of the helmet to allow the air inside the helmet to circulate, preventing the wearer’s senses from being affected when it was worn in the summer. It was very user-friendly.
The handsome young man then found the manual and read it silently. After he had read through everything, he connected the power cord to the computer and then pressed the power button on the helmet.
According to the instructions, if the power supply was not connected for the first time, it could not be turned on.
Sure enough, after connecting the power, the helmet turned on.
At the same time, the computer automatically installed the driver of the haptic shock helmet. After the installation was completed and all computer permissions were given, the helmet was in its formal activated mode.
The handsome young man excitedly leaned against the headboard of the bed and put on the helmet. At first, all he saw was darkness, then there was a bright flash. His entire field of vision was completely occupied by the three-dimensional images projected by the helmet’s VR.
From the perspective of the handsome young man, he only saw the Blacklight Biotechnology logo flashing once, after which a huge and empty room appeared before his eyes.
The size of this room was about fifty square meters and in one glance he could take it all in. In the center of the floor of the room, a small red ball hovered quietly.
This was a fantastic sensation as if he were standing in this room at this time and the angle of the image he saw was almost identical with his eyes’ field of vision, encompassing one hundred and eighty degrees. If he moved his eyes, he could also see the side of the room, which felt very natural.
“Hello, dear user, I’m Little X. Please follow my prompts to set your user options; now, please stare at the red ball in the room and imagine that the ball is moving according to your thoughts.”
A crisp reminder sounded from his ears. The handsome young man knew that this Little X was equivalent to Microsoft’s Cortana. It was the voice of a new operating system.
Still, it was the learning part now. The handsome young man earnestly tried to move the small ball based on his imagination. Suddenly, the small red ball moved slightly and rolled dozens of centimeters toward his position.
“Huh?”
Although he knew it was mind control, when the ball in front of him moved along with his mind, the handsome young man was still overwhelmed by an indescribable wonder.
After all, he did not have any hardware such as a mouse at this time. He was completely relying on his thoughts. Could such an abstract, intangible thing control this helmet?
He was struck by an ineffable sense of excitement and novelty. The handsome young man continued to control the ball following the prompts. After he finally set everything up, his helmet was completely connected to the computer.
The handsome young man knew that the function of this helmet was a third-party computer input device, like the smartwatch or the keyboard, but compared to those two devices, the function of the haptic shock helmet was to let people use their brain waves to directly control the computer, freeing up their hands.
In this way, both typing and maneuvering were much faster. Even when playing various games, all operations only required a single thought.
This was still not a big deal. The handsome young man quickly became familiar with everything. After learning to use the haptic shock helmet, even surfing the Internet was much easier than before.
Of course, the real purpose that most people had bought this type of equipment, in addition to the novelty of the experience, was more for the VR games that Blacklight Biotechnology originally promised. After all, experiencing those games would be like experiencing another life, and web novels about gaming had also led to people daydreaming about these thought-controlled helmets.
One might say that one-third of the reason the VR helmets could sell so well was thanks to the gimmick of the brainwave control while the other two-thirds was because of gaming web novels.
Therefore, filled with eager anticipation, after familiarizing himself with the operations, the handsome young man relied on his thoughts to open the store application software that came with the helmet system in the lower right corner, just like Apple’s App Store. The V.1 haptic shock series also had its own independent application platform. After opening the platform, he found the menu of the games’ software in a glance.
With a flick of his mind, the game menu was opened and a row of games came into view automatically. Demonic Statues, Grand Swordsman, King of Rogues, and so on. From simple first-person shooters to real-time strategy games, there was everything. Although there were not many, only about a dozen, these games had tempted the heart of the handsome young man.
This was because he had never heard of any of these games…
After he randomly clicked into a game, he saw that the introduction said:
[Demonic Statues: First-person game. Game level — AAA. Game introduction: One late night in the future year 2045, all human beings suddenly lose their minds at the same moment as if they have been manipulated by some unknown existence, and are reincarnated as the living dead. Phoenix is the only survivor in the world. What he needs to do is to break through the endless horror and investigate the truth of the extinction of human civilization…]
After trying to remember something, the young man’s heart suddenly leaped. He took off his helmet and asked the tall and thin young man who also wore a helmet on the bed next to him, “Yang Jian, you have played more games than me. Have you heard of a stand-alone game called Demonic Statues?”
Within two seconds, the tall and thin young man replied, “No, but have you forgotten? Blacklight Biotechnology promised to design more than a dozen AAA masterpieces for us, otherwise, would we have bought this? Now it seems that these games are the AAA masterpieces they promised.”
“So that’s it. In that case, I’ll add them all to the download list.”
The handsome young man nodded, then put on his helmet again.
This same scene occurred in all corners of the world. With the first batch of V.1 devices entering thousands of households, the influence of Blacklight Biotechnology in the electronics industry had officially begun to expand.