Mirror Projection?
After a series of system checks concluded, Lister reviewed his own experience and various data.
Surprisingly, the 10,000 experience points mentioned in the notification were not deducted.
Upon re-entering the city, there were no effects similar to those experienced by players with red names, including being pursued by local officials.
He remained in the city as Lister Merrick, unnoticed by the players.
It seems that all the punishments were borne by his non-existent player character Chen Xinhe.
The discussion in the public chat was quite heated at the moment.
"Holy crap, finally someone dares to make a move in the city! But where is he? Why hasn't he said a word?!"
"I was nearby at the time. Chen Xinhe was definitely a top player from the closed beta; he was incredibly fast, and disappeared as soon as he killed someone."
"You're a tough guy to go after 'Green Nourishment Group'!"
As expected, any murders within the city will be announced to all players in the city, although no names will actually be reported.
For regular players, a red name marker will automatically appear above their heads when entering a city.
As for Lister's exposure, it was mainly due to the other party's constant shouting and cursing through a loudspeaker.
Meanwhile, private messages kept popping up on Lister's chat panel, and friend requests kept coming in.
Just as he was about to temporarily disable the friend system, Lister saw a private message from another familiar ID.
"Brother, you're the one who introduced me to the quest during the closed beta, right? You did a great job killing him!" -- "War God of Jiangling Prefecture" (Chen Shanqiang).
Lister couldn't help but laugh when he saw this. Although the lucky person he chose had nothing to do with Chen Shanqiang, it did help Chen Shanqiang vent his anger.
With the idea that I should at least connect with a few players, I accepted their friend request.
"Brother Chen, since you killed that 'Love of a Lifetime,' then you are my brother, Chen Shanqiang."
We both have the surname Chen, maybe we were one family five hundred years ago.
"Brother Chen, don't worry, you can't enter the city because you're a red name now. Just let me know if you need any potions while leveling up, and I'll mail them to you!"
"I can get you anything the Auction House has!"
As a player from the closed beta, he's probably someone of importance in the Earth Federation; his tone suggests he's not short of money.
He's obviously a bit of a chatterbox. When we were chatting in the public chat during the closed beta, Lister thought it was because he was furious about being killed, but now it seems that's just his personality.
"Could you send me a screenshot? The chat window when you contacted me?"
"Ding~!"
A reply came instantly; two pictures arrived in a flash.
One is the private chat window, and the other is the friend window.
"Chen Xinhe (red name)."
The bright red lettering reassured Lister considerably; it seemed that Chen Xinhe would be blamed for all his actions of killing players!
As for the consequences of punishment, they are practically nonexistent.
Lister discovered a unique bug in his ability to attack players – "Chen Xinhe, the Outlaw".
Back at Evergreen Inn, Lister was finally able to calm down and study the remaining two visualization diagrams.
Ten days have passed in the blink of an eye.
[Killing Intent Wave (Passive, No Grade) LV1 (0/10000):...]
Lister smiled as he looked at the passive skill that had finally appeared on his skill panel.
On average, it took him five days to complete one passive learning task.
Recalling that Will Breathing Technique also took five days to learn, it seems that as long as he concentrates, he can learn passive skills in five days.
With six passive skills now at his disposal, Lister felt that his potential was limitless.
In the Auction House has listed a total of twenty-two passive skills, but unfortunately, none of them are the intelligence attribute passive skills he needs.
As for special passive skills, they have not yet appeared.
Lister isn't in a hurry, as the game has only been online for less than a month.
Everyone is still busy leveling up. Only after reaching level 20 will they start to focus on taking on quests, including upgrading skills, etc. These are the main ways to improve your character in the game.
There will be more Skill Books then; currently, there are three passive Skill Books listed on the Auction House for 5 gold coins each.
It looks like the price has increased compared to before, but actually it's just due to more monsters being killed and inflation and currency devaluation. It's actually cheaper than when the server opened.
After browsing the Auction House, Lister put on his gear and went out to grind experience points.
He originally looked down on the monsters in the first act because their level was too low and they gave too little experience.
With six passive effects now in place, even Lister couldn't withstand these experience-intensive players.
The only thing to do is hurry outside and grind monsters; even small gains add up.
While the monster tide in the Great Chu Imperial Dynasty seemed endless, there wouldn't be as many monsters for Lister to grind experience on once he returned to the Kingdom of Lucian.
There were quite a few players keeping watch at the outer city gate.
They were all either on their own or sent people to seek revenge, including the players who were tailing Chen Xinhe.
Unfortunately, ever since Chen Xinhe killed his "Love of a Lifetime," he seems to have vanished.
Outside the city were players who had already been hired by the "Green Nourishment Group." They conducted several thorough searches, but still couldn't find any trace of him.
This greatly angered the "Love of a Lifetime," but she was also extremely helpless.
He had never suffered such humiliation before, as if his all-out attack had failed to land. He had already started searching for someone in the Earth Federation, but there was still no news.
Lister swaggered out of the city.
When the guards at the city gate saw him leaving, they saluted Lister with their weapons still in hand.
It wasn't because of his status as an envoy, but because he single-handedly killed the Bloodmane Spirit Bear.
I admire his abilities and also respect his actions in saving Jiangxia City.
Outside the city, Lister casually opened the public chat, scrolling through the constantly appearing messages about teaming up to fight monsters and finding teammates.
Although the area outside the city is not the same world as where the players are, the approximate coordinates of the monster hordes are the same.
Although Lister's leveling up and monster farming can't be refreshed, the advantage is that no one will compete with him for monsters.
[Target Found: Tauren]
[Reconnaissance of enemy and friendly forces in progress... Reconnaissance results have been obtained...]
[Level: Lv8]
The low-level monsters in the beginner village are only intimidating in appearance.
Lister stepped forward and, ignoring everything else, unleashed an Iai Slash.
Congratulations, you have gained 8 experience points.
"Congratulations,..."
It feels so good to Iai Slash and clear out the monsters; after a series of screen-floating attacks, my experience points surged by 871.
Then continue browsing the public chat to move on to the next target point.
The monster experience is a bit low, but Lister is very efficient at killing monsters.
In just two hours, he had cleared out the entire wilderness area near the outer Jiangling City.
He encountered a total of 19 monster groups, gaining 22,000 experience points, which made him quite pleased.
As he prepared to refresh the public chat again to find the coordinates of the next monster, the message on the public chat surprised even Lister.
"Does anyone know what's going on? Why aren't the monsters respawning in the 1x1, 0XX area outside the city?"
"Bro, is this happening to you guys too? My coordinates are 0XX, and the Rat Armor Demons at 1XX aren't respawning anymore. I thought it was just my coordinates where there weren't any monsters left!"
"Holy crap, you guys are kidding, it's not refreshing here either."
"Could it be that this game will gradually remove some monster spawn points?"
A series of messages, all about the monsters not respawning.
Lister looked at the coordinates on the public screen; every single one of them was a place he had visited.
On the contrary, the monsters in the outer and central areas, the areas he hasn't yet cleared, are still constantly refreshing the public chat messages.