Sister Blossoms

Like the other players who had started at launch, after discovering that the monsters outside the city were all Silver Rank, 'Lost a Leg' had also carved out his own unique path for leveling up.

He left Broken Sword Valley, crossed Misty Forest, and entered Crystal Seal Village deep within the region through a hidden entrance behind a lava waterfall in Lava Basin, arriving at the Novice Village closest to Iron Wall City.

This area was mainly populated by lava monsters above level 60, but there were also some level 1 to 20 Slag Elves that could be farmed.

During the first playthrough, a Lv. 163 Boss had been hidden here.

Despair Echo - Aperlia.

Though it sounded like a humanoid monster, it was actually a lump of Black Mud sealed inside crystal.

Only after killing it could players unlock Crystal Seal Village's teleportation point and reach the red-rock region beyond the village.

With a demigod-level Boss guarding the entrance, 'Lost a Leg' had originally had no intention of entering the village.

But when he discovered that a group of NPCs were actually living in the supposedly barren village, clanging away at their forges, he still risked wasting his Experience Points and walked into the NPC settlement.

The NPCs in the village showed immense enthusiasm toward this outsider, constantly asking him about the outside world.

While consulting the background information, 'Lost a Leg' answered most of the villagers' questions, traded for a set of excellent equipment with no level requirement, and even met the village's true leader.

The saintess who called herself the Creator God's saintess, one of the former Salvation Army's leaders, who had sealed herself in crystal after her body was corrupted. She had not yet become the Boss guarding the entrance, but her lower body had already rotted into a revolting puddle of festering flesh: Despair Saintess - Aperlia.

Upon encountering the Creator God's saintess, 'Lost a Leg' instinctively assumed he could level up here.

But Aperlia's entire body was sealed within crystal and could not be touched. He could only farm monsters for a while longer, waiting for the village's other saintess, Unsealing Saintess Aperia, to return before asking this saintess, who looked exactly like her older sister but was a few years younger, to level him up.

Naturally, he failed.

Aer could level up players because Li Li had shared the Divine Legion's abilities with her.

The Creator God's other saintesses had not received that portion of authority.

Without the God Banning Barrier, Li Li could have granted them authority from afar.

But against the backdrop of all gods being corrupted, Li Li, huddled within the God Banning Barrier, had to meet and personally touch his own saintesses if he wanted to grant them authority.

After discovering that Aperia could not level him up, 'Lost a Leg' thought he had stumbled upon some kind of hidden storyline.

However, after observing the chat logs of other players in the group, reading online discussions and speculation from gaming experts about the game's mechanics, and looking into the most recent update, 'Lost a Leg' discovered something.

The previous announcement had said that "Faith" would be changed to "Experience Points," but it had not specified when the update would take effect. At first, he had assumed it was an official mistake and that his interface simply had not updated.

But through the group chat, he discovered that the other players' interfaces had long since updated. Whenever they killed monsters, they could even see exactly how much Experience Points they had obtained.

In the same game and on the same server, some players were somehow running the new version while others were still on the old one.

This led 'Lost a Leg' to speculate that player data in this game might be running on an independent server.

Players would not participate in the operation of the entire world. Instead, they were temporary "variables" that only changed the logic governing the world's operation while they were active.

That way, once players disappeared, there would be no need to calculate the variable known as players.

Likewise, the world itself would not alter player data. Players would not level up automatically, would not be twisted into monsters, and could neither excrete nor reproduce. If they wanted to alter their characters' states, they had to find the Creator God's incarnation.

That guy was the boundary between the "player system" and the "world system."

Only when players touched him could their latest data be uploaded to the "player system."

In other words, this game's "Save Point" was the divine incarnation named Li Li.

The reason for this design was not difficult to guess. Separating "players" from the "world" could avoid most bugs.

As a former programmer, 'Lost a Leg' thought it was a clever design.

It might have been convenient for the developers, but he still had to return to Iron Wall City to level up.

After bidding farewell to the sisters Aperlia and Aperia, 'Lost a Leg' set out on the road back to the city.

As the Creator God's saintess, Unsealing Saintess Aperia, who could move freely, also led the Knight Order alongside him on what they called a pilgrimage.

At first, 'Lost a Leg' had been rather unwilling. If he were alone, his player body would not need food, and he could easily avoid dangerous monsters and pass through the nests of high-level monsters.

But before long, he found himself genuinely pleased with the arrangement.

After all, this Knight Order that called itself the Salvation Army had an average level above 60 when Aperia, the younger saintess sister, was included.

After realizing this, 'Lost a Leg' took the initiative to ask them to help him farm levels. The scattered high-level monsters they killed along the way increased the Faith he had collected from 6 points, enough only to reach level 10, to 72 points, enough to raise a few skills as well.

With 'Lost a Leg' revealing the full map, the group suffered no losses and successfully reached Iron Wall City.

Although they were stopped by the soldiers at the checkpoint when entering the city.

But faced with six Gold Rank powerhouses, the soldiers treated them entirely differently from the other explorers blocked at the checkpoint, and the procedures were completed quickly.

After entering the city, 'Lost a Leg' led everyone to the warehouse.

In any case, he had already been left behind by the first echelon in terms of leveling progress. After grinding for several days straight, he planned to go offline and sleep properly after leveling up, then think about catching up later.

However, after returning to the warehouse and seeing a group of Lv.??? NPCs gathered there, 'Lost a Leg' decided to finish watching the storyline before resting.

Li Li helped Aperia up, sighed, and told Aer, who had been concealing her aura, to reveal herself and take this saintess who had appeared out of nowhere to the back to rest for a while.

Representatives from several different factions silently observed Li Li's actions.

There were many kinds of special units exclusive to deities, but gods who possessed saintesses were exceedingly rare.

Because saintesses required vast amounts of prayer to be born, and with the gods corrupted, the very act of prayer carried enormous risks.

A deity with saintesses.

It meant that this deity had not suffered any corruption and that the faith it possessed was exceptionally pure.

Li Li did not know what these people were thinking, but for the upcoming transaction, he at least needed to show them something.

So he walked over to 'Lost a Leg' and asked, "You have collected quite a lot of energy from corrupted monsters. Do you need me to convert it into your strength?"

"Can I level up now?" 'Lost a Leg' looked around, swallowed as a group of NPCs stared at him, and asked, "Don't we need to finish the storyline first?"