[Congratulations on beating the beta version of this game. When the official version of the game is released, you will receive an exclusive reward.]

"Phew." Wiping the sweat off his forehead, Lan Sol laid back in the chair.

"Finally, after investing 2000+ hours, I've finally 100% completed the game. But… Damn, this is also the beta version. Isn't it like 20 of them released already? The official version is yet to be released!" Lan Sol had finally completed every achievement listed in the game, which took him over 2000 hours, and yet there was still more content to be released in the official version.

So he would have to put in more time to complete the game. "At least they're considerate enough to compensate me for my time."

Though he complained, he was still excited to play the game with new content.

Global Ice Age Survival, a survival game with a huge open world set in the medieval period. There are many empires, kingdoms, dungeons, forests, mountains, oceans, and a variety of races and species.

It is also a Souls-like game with extreme difficulty, and keeping your character alive is incredibly hard.

Players also get to recruit survivors, build their own kingdom step by step, enjoy various gameplay mechanics, choose from different classes, and have lots of fun.

It's also very interactive, with thousands of items to build in the world, creating a medieval-style kingdom or even a modern one with complete automation.

Players can also ally with kingdoms, wage war on them, or conquer them. It's even possible to conquer the entire world.

There's magic in this game, along with technology, strength, and wisdom. It's possible to build different characters based on these traits and have different gameplay experiences.

It's also exciting to tackle various problems and survive. It's exhilarating when you properly strategize and conquer a kingdom or dungeon, and it works. If it doesn't, you have to try different approaches to find the best one that provides the best result with minimal damage and effort.

It took him more than a year to 100% the game. It would have taken less time if the game hadn't been updated so frequently, on a weekly and monthly basis.

Weirdly, despite this game being very addictive, there was almost no forum on the entire internet.

Even when he recommended the game, there were comments like, "The game is shit," or "It's almost impossible to beat the game," and so on.

But it was just weird—no matter the difficulty, there should be a small base of players who liked the game when it was so well-made, free, more fun, and filled with gameplay than most triple-A games.

Even when he tried uploading videos of him playing the game online, recommending it to his friends, and even opening his own forum with strategies and walkthroughs, there wasn't a single soul who watched his video, played the game, or visited the forum.

Tired of this, Lan Sol gave up and just played the game alone. It was lonely. It would have been more fun if he could play it with friends and enjoy it together, but well, one can't get everything in life.

As it was late at night, Lan Sol felt sleepy. His eyelids felt unnaturally heavy, as if his eyelashes were tied to a boulder, making it nearly impossible to open his eyes.

"Haaaaaahaii~"

He let out a long yawn. He jumped onto the bed without changing his clothes and fell asleep instantly.

[The new version of "Global Ice Age Survival" has been updated and is officially released to the public. In one minute, all humans on Earth will be able to play this game.]

[Game Information: In the massive world covered by snow and ice, without the warmth of the sun, you, an unfortunate survivor, must build shelter, upgrade your campfire, and try to survive in this unforgiving, monster-filled world.]

[Game instructions: After the game starts, you will find yourself near a campfire. Make sure to stay within the radius of the campfire for warmth. Be careful when exploring the outside world, as it's not only bone-chillingly cold but also filled with a variety of creatures, ranging from wild animals to monsters.

The campfire is the fire of your survival. Your first priority should be to upgrade the campfire and increase its warmth and radius to live a more comfortable life. Your goal is to collect supplies, expand your territory, and develop individuals who join your territory.]

[Update Logs:

- Added multiplayer mode with a maximum of 4 family members, relatives, or friends. Fortunately, you won't be matched with random strangers, and those without friends, family, or relatives, you unique bunch will be paired to play together.

- New world: The previous world has been entirely replaced with a new one. However, certain kingdoms, empires, NPCs, and most monsters remain the same with some minor changes. A bunch of new nations, continents, and life forms have been added.]

[Then, I wish all the survivors to work hard to live and develop in this new world… safely.]

Holograms with unique voices appeared all over the world. No one could react in time as one minute passed in a flash.

Every individual—whether asleep or awake, injured or sick, disabled or near death—disappeared from Earth.

Every individual's world became nothing but darkness, but light pierced through the dark and shattered the darkness, illuminating the world.

"Cold…" Lan Sol muttered as he woke up feeling cold. He shivered as a deep frown appeared on his face.

"Fuck, this is the middle of the summer. Why is it so cold?!" Cursing, he raised his body.

Swish!

A cold wind blew by, hitting his face. Instantly, the bone-chilling cold cleared his mind, and he let out a shrill.

"Ouch!" His face turned red, and he shivered uncontrollably.

Goosebumps covered his entire body, and his nose was clogged.

"What? How? Where?" Lan Sol was confused beyond words.

The world before him was plain white, as if he had been transported to a blank canvas with nothing painted on it.

A cold wind blew by, chilling his spine.

"How the hell did I end up here? Wait, don't tell me the sun disappeared! Were aliens real? Did they steal our sun?" He remembered a hypothetical video discussing the consequences of the sun's disappearance.

In that video, the sun was stolen by aliens as a joke, but in the current cold, snow-filled world, it seemed as though the aliens really had stolen the sun.

Suddenly, a memory played in his brain. A blue hologram with golden words appeared in his mind—exactly the same as the one displayed on Earth before everyone was transported.

"Wait… I'm inside the game I've played for over a year!" Suddenly, everything clicked.

He now understood why the game he had tried to share with everyone didn't gain popularity despite its content and gameplay.

It wasn't a game developed by humans but by some mystical force that didn't want to share it with the world. 

Now, they had released the game and forced everyone to play—not virtually, but physically!

In his mind, he didn't care about the people being transported or who had created the game. What preoccupied him was why the game didn't become popular and why it was so fun, as if nothing else mattered.

"Achoo!" He sneezed. "I should get near the campfire." As a veteran in the game, his instincts kicked in.

His experience with the game filled his mind, and he immediately began walking toward the campfire, which was two meters away.

In this white world, the yellowish-red glow of the fire stood out. As he reached the fire, he felt its warmth, a blissful sensation akin to bathing in cold water during winter and then basking in the sun.

The bliss of feeling warmth after enduring extreme cold couldn't be described in words.

"Haaah." He sighed in relief, but the heat wasn't intense. The temporary warmth faded as the surrounding cold began affecting him again.

"Achoo!" He sneezed again. "I should first upgrade the campfire and fix the Territory Lord's Hut as soon as possible." These two tasks were the most important at the moment.

He looked around and found branches scattered all over the place, along with piles of stones.

Wood and stone—the most basic resources essential throughout the game.

Nearby, he noticed a wooden box.

"Ah! The storage box!" At the beginning of the game, it was impossible to create a storage box, so managing the limited space in the storage box and inventory was crucial.

The storage box had a special property: anything stored inside remained unchanged, as time was said to stand still within its dimensions.

Lan Sol touched the wooden box.

[Storage] 

[Wood x100] 

[Stone x100] 

[White Bread x100] 

[Construction Hammer] 

[Random Class Weapon Scroll x1]

"Hmm, there's a lot of items here. I should eat something first, upgrade the campfire, and build the Lord's Hut before doing anything else." He clicked on the bread and selected how much he wanted to take out.

He took out a single loaf of white bread. It was big and oval, soft to the touch, and looked incredibly enticing.

It was the first time he had ever seen such an appetizing loaf of bread, large enough to completely fill the stomach of a normal man.

"Did the game always provide white bread? Wasn't it black bread before?" 

While there were more official terms for white and black bread, the game always referred to them simply as white and black. White bread was more delicious, fluffier, and expensive, while black bread was average-tasting and cheap, commonly eaten by most residents of the nations.

[Name]: White Bread 

[Type]: Consumable 

[Quality]: Ordinary 

[Effect]: +30 Hunger Satiation 

(1 white bread = 1 food)

Lan Sol read the description, which matched what he remembered from the game, and quickly ate the bread.

The single loaf of bread was eaten in ten bites, completely satiating his hunger.

"Burp!" Lan Sol let out a satisfying burp as he reached the campfire.

[Name]: Campfire 

[Level]: 1 

[Type]: Structure 

[Effect]: +5~20°C for 2 wood/10 minutes, within a radius of 10 meters 

[Materials Required for Upgrading]: Stone x5

[Do you wish to upgrade the 'Campfire'? It will take 5 stones and 5 seconds to upgrade it.]

[Yes] / [No]

Without hesitation, he clicked yes. Fortunately, there was no need to manually carry logs outside the storage box to upgrade the structure, as he could directly use wood and stones from the storage box.

Pop!

As he clicked yes, a construction hammer appeared out of thin air and fell into his hand.

Blue spots appeared on the campfire, and he began hitting them with the hammer.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As he hit the blue spots, stone appeared, and the campfire expanded automatically without him needing to do anything other than smash the blue spots with the hammer.

After fifteen seconds of continuous banging, the upgrade was complete.

[Name]: Campfire 

[Level]: 2 

[Type]: Structure 

[Effect]: +10~25°C for 4 wood/10 minutes, within a radius of 20 meters 

[Materials Required for Upgrading]: Stone x10

[Do you wish to upgrade the 'Campfire'? It will take 10 stones and 10 seconds to upgrade it.]

….

After emptying almost all of the stones on the campfire, it took nearly a minute to upgrade it to level 4.

[Name]: Campfire 

[Level]: 4 

[Type]: Structure 

[Effect]: +20~35°C for 8 wood/10 minutes, within a radius of 40 meters 

[Materials Required for Upgrading]: Stone x80

"Phew. Done." Lan Sol felt tired, as he rarely did manual labor and hardly ever swung a hammer for more than two minutes.

He was of average build, a little tall, and had no muscle. He looked decent—neither ugly nor attractive enough to catch anyone's eye at first glance.

Lan Sol glanced at a wooden hut covered in snow. It was almost entirely obscured, and it took focus to recognize it as a structure rather than a pile of snow.

[Name]: Territory Lord's Hut 

[Level]: 0 

[Type]: Building 

[Effect]: None (Broken) 

[Materials Required for Repair]: 

Stone x50, Wood x25

[P.S.]: If you want to freeze to death sleeping out in the snow, by all means, don't bother fixing it. But if you prefer to stay warm and safe, better get to work!

"I just have the materials to build this. So let's get to work."

[Do you wish to repair the 'Territory Lord's Hut'? It will take 50 stones, 25 wood, and 5 minutes to fix it.]

"Yes." With that, he began slamming his hammer on the blue spots appearing around the wooden hut.

Time passed, and the wooden hut began to take shape. The more he hammered, the cleaner the house became. Snow melted away, stone reinforced the foundation, and the roof was completed.

[Ding!]

[You completed the construction of your 'Territory Lord's Hut'!!!]

[You unlocked 'Player Interface', 'Notification Interface', 'Territory Interface', 'Chat Interface', and 'World Interface'!]

[You received a 'Class Ticket'! You can now choose a class.]

[Please check your notifications for more information.]

"Finally. It's time to officially begin the game!"

In the game, the repair of the Territory Lord's Hut signified the official start. The only thing missing was an achievement. In-game, he would receive the achievement 'The Beginning of Survival' after repairing the hut.

"Well anyway, let's check the notifications first."

[Notification] 

[1. Thanks for giving us your life to play the wonderful game created by us. It's our pleasure that you gave us your life to play this game and enjoy it. Hope you have a wonderful time in this world.]

[2. Welcome Beta Player Lan for again playing our game. For your participation in the beta test, we will provide you an exclusive reward: SSS+ ranked Talent Ticket.]

[3. You are the only player in the entire world to play this game alone. Because you are our exclusive player, we are providing you with a unique experience to play this game alone while others play as a team. It will be more competitive and challenging for you, but with your prior experience, we are sure you can get through it and conquer this world. However, since it's still unfair to you, we have decided to give you these three benefits: 

- Early start. You are one day earlier than other players. Other players will join you in this wonderful game tomorrow, so you can get a head start while others cooperate with each other, get used to the game, and slowly develop themselves. 

- 2 times the resources for a whole week. Resources you gather, or anyone in your territory gathering resources, will yield twice the amount for a whole week. 

- For a little compensation to others, monsters will spawn three times more than in other areas, providing double experience points for a whole week.

[4. Hope you will enjoy this wonderful game. There won't be any achievement system, no quests from the system (however, you can receive quests from NPCs), and you can play the game in any way you want. The syste

m will appear once in a while to provide notifications on new updates and changes in the world. Please enjoy :D]

Lan Sol was stunned for a moment and exclaimed with joy, "Holy shit! Awesome! There are cheats and benefits too! I hit the jackpot!"