Recruiting Soldiers and Buying Horses

The same day.

In other villages and county towns of the Sacred Dynasty, and even in remote places such as the Western Regions and overseas, some players who had descended were doing the same thing.

After descending, these players would directly inherit the identities of ordinary people in this world.

In Jiang Dali's view, this inheritance was somewhat like the transmigration and rebirth in fantasy novels, where a soul traveled through time and possessed the body of a native.

Every player would receive an initial identity.

This initial identity was the key to establishing themselves in this world.

Otherwise, without even an identity, they would be unregistered residents who had popped out of a crack in the rocks.

In his previous life, some players had exceptionally favorable starts, born directly into an escort agency as an errand runner, or into a sect as a menial. Those already counted as top-tier beginnings.

The vast majority were born in ordinary villages as common villagers.

A very small number were born directly in county towns or even prefectural cities, with conditions slightly better than those of villagers.

But they all had one thing in common: every player started out as an orphan, making them very much like protagonists.

Yet in essence, every player was also like an NPC, though none of the players would see themselves that way.

Jiang Dali, however, knew that the greatest difference between players and NPCs was that NPC names had a hint of green above their heads, while player names were black.

By that afternoon.

The bandits sent out to gather information about the newcomers had all returned.

Jiang Dali sat in the spacious council hall, having already received several notification prompts in advance.

Player Li Jianfeng wishes to join Black Wind Stronghold. Accept?

Player Guse Yiren wishes to join Black Wind Stronghold. Accept?

Mission triggered: "Recruiting Soldiers and Buying Horses": Recruit a batch of fresh blood into Black Wind Stronghold. Upon completion, receive Cultivation Points and Potential Points based on the stage achieved.

Current stage: 0/10

Jiang Dali did not immediately choose to accept any of these prompts.

Knowing how players were, they clearly only wanted to use Black Wind Stronghold as a stepping stone.

How could Jiang Dali allow such a frivolous thing to happen?

Once the leeks were planted in his vegetable patch, they could forget about leaving.

At that moment, Jiang Dali enjoyed having two underlings massage his shoulders and back as he listened to a group of bandits enthusiastically deliver their reports.

"Great Mountain Lord, you truly are wise! Sure enough, there were some villagers from nearby villages today who acted very strangely. Some even killed the chickens and ducks of their fellow villagers for no reason and were driven out of their villages. I think there were people like that in Mengyin County too."

"Yeah, yeah, but some of those dog officials in Mengyin County didn't welcome us. We didn't dare stay long."

"Two of the strange-talking fellows even wanted to follow us up to the stronghold, saying they wanted to join Black Wind Stronghold. I figured we had to report this to you first, Great Mountain Lord, so I didn't bring those two along."

The bandits all talked over one another, recounting the information they had gathered.

Jiang Dali tallied it up and got a rough idea.

"By this count, fourteen players descended near Mengyin County this time. That's not a small number of able-bodied men."

He remembered that there had only been one hundred thousand players in the first batch of public beta participants.

One hundred thousand people scattered across the vast Comprehensive Martial World—from the Central Plains to the Western Regions, overseas, and the Southern Frontier—were like a ladleful of water thrown into the sea, utterly insignificant.

Jiang Dali already considered himself extremely fortunate that more than a dozen players had appeared around Mengyin County.

"You did well. Go claim a bowl of wine and a piece of cured meat each. Consider it today's reward. Tomorrow, I'll give you new tasks."

"Great!"

"The Great Mountain Lord is generous!"

The bandits left the hall in high spirits, shouting about going to drink.

Ordinary farmers in villages might not get to eat meat or drink wine even once a month.

Though the bandits lived rather freely, being able to drink wine and eat meat once every three days already counted as a prosperous life.

Thus, Jiang Dali's reward left the bandits thoroughly satisfied.

After dismissing his subordinates, Jiang Dali's eyes flickered as he opened his personal attribute panel.

At this moment, with the players' descent.

A special new section had appeared in his panel—the Jianghu Forum.

Jiang Dali could not explain how this newly added section had come into being.

Originally, he had thought that being reborn into this world as a native and possessing an attribute panel was already strange enough. It should have been impossible for him to possess anything else that belonged outside this world.

But now, the appearance of the Jianghu Forum shattered some of his assumptions and raised the complexity of matters to a whole new level.

Still, Jiang Dali knew he would have a hard time finding answers now, so he could only bury some of his speculations in his heart for the time being.

Since the Jianghu Forum had appeared, he could use it to determine whether the players who descended today were the first batch of closed beta players from back then.

Perhaps because the closed beta had only just begun.

There were not many people posting on the Jianghu Forum.

After trying it out and discovering that he could not make posts like a player, Jiang Dali accepted it.

I'm an NPC now, a green name. The legitimate Black Wind Stronghold Master. I'm not one of the closed beta players, so it's perfectly normal that I can't post. The abnormal thing is that I can even see the Jianghu Forum.

Jiang Dali felt somewhat guilty.

He wondered whether the officials would discover that he was currently wandering around the Jianghu Forum as a "visitor."

Yet despite his unease, he figured the odds of that happening were low.

At the same time, among the forum posts that had already been published, he saw several familiar names from back then.

The posts made by those familiar fellows were clearly records of their exploration of the game, as immature as they had been in the past.

From this, he could tell that his rebirth in the Comprehensive Martial World had not caused any changes to those familiar players. They were still following the trajectory of history.

After browsing for a while, Jiang Dali came across an interesting post.

The poster was named Drunk Green Shirt, a name he knew well.

The moment he saw it, information about the man from his previous life surfaced in his mind.

"Drunk Green Shirt, a disciple of the Mount Hua Sect. He specialized in Mount Hua's Life-Taking Chain Three Immortals Sword and later learned a fragment of the Dugu Nine Swords.

"He once relied on the Dugu Nine Swords to dominate the jianghu for more than half a year, but after being betrayed by friends and family, he was repeatedly killed by Overlord Hall, an organization established by the officials. All his martial arts and cultivation realm were reset to zero, and he left the Comprehensive Martial World in despair."