Why Did We Leave Newbie Planet Only to Build a Novice Village Ourselves?

"Splitting the Mountain!"

The Caramel Snail leaped high from the hillside, wielding its long blade and slashing fiercely at the long neck of a gray-feathered Ground Poultry. Its ferocious strength, like fire, combined with the conversion of gravitational potential energy, generated immense kinetic energy; on Azure Planet, it would have been enough to slice through the roof of a car.

Clang!

The collision produced a crisp sound like metal clashing, Caramel Snail immediately felt a tingling sensation in its hand and a sharp pain in its bones.

The gray-feathered bird took the blow squarely to the neck, then immediately spread its four wings, creating a whirlwind that instantly flipped the Caramel Snail over.

"What the heck!" Caramel Snail fell on his backside, looking completely bewildered. He raised the bent longsword in his hand. "This is a military sword that we seized from the Heavenly Ring Warrior! How come it couldn't even kill ' Zhiyin '?"

Da da da da da!

Holding a submachine gun resembling a 'short sword' in each hand, Caramel Snail Cumin Powder the opportunity as soon as she was out of combat, unleashing a burst of fire at her target. The 9mm potassium-incendiary armor-piercing bullets exploded into a series of sparks on the gray-feathered bird, creating a spectacular scene. However, the numbers that flew up were only a few single-digit damages caused by the burning.

"Wow, even guns can't break through it." Cumin Powder complained, "The ecological level of White Candle Star is a bit too high, can we really go hunting with a 155mm howitzer?"

"Even if we had that thing, it would be too much of a loss." Garryton said, taking over from Caramel Snail and rushing forward, setting up a blast shield made of polymer material, carrying a high-voltage electric knife in one hand, and going forward to draw aggro.

Unlike Caramel Snail, a high-attack, high-speed weapon warrior, Garryton is also a well-known heavy armor warrior in professional matches. His stat allocation is high in Strength and Constitution, and he uses a shield specifically for control.

Coo coo coo—

A gray-feathered bird, as tall as a person, suddenly flapped its wings and took flight. With a leap, it launched a flying kick with its long legs. Before Garryton could react, he was kicked away, shield and all, and sent flying.

Garryton quickly used his taunt skill, but immediately a system notification popped up:

[Your social standing is too far below your target's; failure is deemed appropriate.]

Fortunately, Garryton was a seasoned veteran. As a professional player, he remained calm, put away his weapon, and gripped it tightly the moment he fell to the ground.

Gravity Reversal

The gravity borrowed from Li Aoz had a remarkable effect. The gray-feathered bird was constantly harassed by the Cumin Powder's attacks from the back row. Just as it was about to raise its head to pounce on the Cumin Powder, it suddenly seemed to lose its footing and fall, its body instantly crashing headfirst into the tree behind it.

"A great opportunity!"

[Vault of Heaven] Guild's Yu Tianxiao seized the opportunity and immediately ordered the cannons he had placed to fire. Ye Zhangjian suddenly burst into action. Under Yu Tianxiao's fire cover, he held his sword in one hand, held his breath, and charged forward. He made three consecutive irregular dashes, skillfully avoiding the gray-feathered bird's pecking. He then slid down, turned around, and swung his sword. While avoiding the gray-feathered bird's wing flapping, he slashed at the gray-feathered bird's long and slender leg.

Smash!

The sword struck the joint squarely, and the Greyfeathered Bird let out a mournful cry, lost its footing and fell to the ground. In an instant, its heavy body crashed to the ground, dust flying everywhere. Garryton, who had just gotten up, was directly thrown over again by the shockwave.

Ye Zhangjian moved with lightning speed, striking acupoints on his body in succession to activate his invincible body. His energy instantly flowed through his nerves and blood vessels, allowing him to stride forward despite the swirling sandstorm.

The gray-feathered bird on the ground let out a shriek and flapped its wings rapidly, scattering a large amount of razor-sharp feathers.

Unperturbed by the sight of Ye Zhangjian, he used gravity to hook himself in mid-air, changing his form several times to easily dodge the attack. High above, sword in hand, he charged into the gray-feathered bird's blind spot behind its neck.

Not to be outdone, Caramel Snail switched to another weapon, activating the Soul-Inscribed Sword Saint. The long blade was wrapped in a layer of eerie purple aura. He sheathed it, assumed a stance for Iaijutsu, and charged straight at the gray-feathered bird.

Two Martial Artist emerged from the left and right, their swords clashing and their blades flashing, their energy surging, and a pungent smell filled the air, as if their power was piercing through the air.

The next moment, sword and blade slashed, the invisible force of gravity and the purple demonic energy working together to slice through the gray-feathered bird's skull, tearing away a layer of feathers and flesh, causing blood to gush out. Just as its brainstem was struck hard and it lost its balance, the Caramel Snail's attack arrived. The long knife swung up and embedded itself in the bird's pectoral muscle, its strength instantly flowing in. With a powerful pull, the Caramel Snail ripped open a bright red gash.

"Get out of the way!"

Whoosh! Cumin Powder set up the Rocket Launcher and aimed at the Caramel Snail's wound. The two attacking warriors immediately retreated in time, rolled on the spot, and calmly created distance, turning their backs to the gray bird's mournful figure.

The rocket exploded, and flames instantly engulfed the entire bird.

[You have killed a level 20 [Gray Feather Land Pigeon] - Your overall damage output accounted for more than 60%, a kill above a higher level, team rewards, extra rewards are being calculated...]

You have accumulated 25,427 experience points.

"Wow, the reward is really generous!" Cumin Powder exclaimed in surprise. "A single free-range chicken can give us 25,000 experience points. At this rate, we can reach the Alpha Rank next week!"

"That's easy for you to say, but our shells are a non-renewable resource." Yu Tianxiao reluctantly put away the turret. As a [Mechanic], he had suffered a great loss here. Not only could he not find any supplies, but due to his complete lack of understanding of the physics and materials science of this planet, he couldn't even make a basic machining lathe.

Ye Zhangjian sheathed his dulled sword and glanced admiringly at Caramel Snail: "Your attacks are quite good, every strike is deadly."

"Uh, no, no, no." Caramel Snail immediately revealed her social anxiety after being praised like that, waving her hands repeatedly. "This, this is considered to be the result of borrowing Aoneng from Li Aoz. Yes, it's thanks to Aoneng."

"That Aoneng really peculiar. Not only can it directly grant spell damage, but it also grants weapon proficiency. I remember what it was called again..."

"The Soul-Inscribed Sword Saint." Caramel Snail finished speaking and added, "You need to Favorability of 150 or higher for Li Aoz to unlock the rental."

"No wonder, my Favorability is too low. At present, I can only rent the two Aoneng, [Eye of Truth] and [Gravity]."

"Aren't those two Aoneng available to anyone to rent?" Garryton came running over excitedly, starting to cut materials off the corpse while complaining, "Old Ye, you need to change your habit of not raising your NPC Favorability."

"I'm too lazy to do it. Most games' Favorability is just about unlocking a few lines of dialogue, but Li Aoz is different. He provides real benefits."

As Ye Zhangjian spoke, he raised his hand, using gravity to manipulate the blade to rotate and dance continuously. "The ability to defeat the monsters in these new maps is entirely due to the Aoneng provided by Li Aoz. If this pigeon were placed on the battlefield of Sky Ring back then, I suspect it could take on a whole squad of warriors."

"Be confident, one platoon."

Everyone started complaining about the difficulty of the new map. Even professional players like them, who are already top-tier among players, felt Follow the Heart when facing the new map of White Candle Star.

As the saying goes, "Even a skilled cook can't cook without rice." On Azure Planet, since class differences are not very obvious, most of the time a bunch of Alpha Rank riflemen are enough to deal with most situations, let alone when combined with mechanized warfare. The advantage of individual strongmen is not particularly significant in war.

However, once they arrived on White Candle Star, the players, having lost their technological advantage, found that their firearms had become quite useless. On the one hand, these weapons did not have high damage and were not enough to deal with hunting activities.

On the other hand, due to the loss of processing plants and industrial systems, bullets had to be used sparingly, and some bullets were simply melted down to make copper.

Unfortunately, none of the players on White Candle Star are [Strange] type mediums, leaving them all lacking in spell units. The only ones who can serve as substitutes for Spellcasters are [Biobot] and [Mechanic].

As darkness fell and night approached, the group made no attempt to rest, and quickly returned with their prey.

Caramel Snail has been hanging out with these pro players for a while now and they've gotten to know each other quite well. The biggest impression she gets is that, apart from their ability to control recoil at a perfect point from 100 meters away, their agile movements like swallows, their ability to lock onto enemies like they have a cheat code, and their ability to promptly report enemy positions and provide crucial information—professional players are no different from ordinary people.

Several professional players were quite interested in Caramel Snail and expressed their desire to recruit him to their youth training camp.

As a complete novice in gaming, Caramel Snail knew nothing about esports. However, after hanging out with Li Aoz for a while, his emotional intelligence had improved considerably. He didn't explicitly refuse, using the topic to learn more about industry insider information and inquire about the training methods of professional players.

The cheerful and tomboyish Cumin Powder was his best friend, and the two chatted the most along the way. Soon, Caramel Snail learned a lot of interesting anecdotes about the e-sports world in the hot summer.

"Most esports teams in the sweltering summer are sponsored by food companies, so their names are almost always food brand names. As a result, every domestic esports tournament is often referred to as the 'Chef King Competition'."

"Huh? Is it that outrageous? What does your team [XXG] mean?"

"Fragrant Chicken. By the way, my ID is Cumin Powder because the client asked me to endorse cumin-flavored Fragrant Chicken."

"If the teams playing in the sweltering summer play terribly, will they be told 'too bad, they're so bad they're practically eating rice,' 'are you trying to plant rice in my stomach,' or 'I can't eat anymore'?"

"No, no, no, the audience was very polite and well-mannered."

Cumin Powder refutes the rumor:

"They would politely refer to it as a 'state banquet'."

Just as Caramel Snail was suppressing a laugh, Yu Tianxiao suddenly pointed ahead and said, "Hey, look over there..."

Following the direction he pointed, everyone saw a simple village nestled among the mountains. It had almost no shelter, and large amounts of building materials were laid out in the open, giving it a rugged and primitive appearance.

"There are actually people in this desolate wilderness," Caramel Snail exclaimed, then realized something was wrong. The more he looked at the location, the more familiar it seemed. The trees and dilapidated temple ruins beside him gave him an increasingly strong sense of déjà vu.

"Doesn't this location look familiar?"

"We haven't unlocked the mini-map here, so we can't see where we are."

"This hillside, these ruins, this tent..."

Before they could even begin their discussion, the system suddenly popped up a notification:

[' Li Aoz ' has established a new territory here. Since you have already accepted the long-term quest ' New Journey,' you meet the requirements to start the new phase of the quest.]

[Task updated/////]

[Long-term mission - Build a Home]

You have joined a new faction – White Candle Star, Trustworthy Village.

Let's work together to build your home!

The group looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Didn't we just leave the Newbie Planet?" Caramel Snail asked blankly. "Seriously, this name sounds like it has a really bad sense of humor... Who came up with that? It's so tasteless."

"Perhaps we misunderstood before."

Yu Tianxiao thought for a moment and then proposed an idea, "For the game ' Star Abyss,' the real Novice Village refers to the entire first level of the abyss?"