Village Entrance Minions

System Prompt: Please choose a name for your character.

A blank entry appeared before him.

Xiao Jie thought for a moment, then chose an old gaming handle he used in the past—Hidden Moon Follows Wind.

To his surprise, the game lacked character creation and class selection screens, switching the perspective directly to his avatar.

A thin man wearing only shorts, holding a wooden stick in his hand.

[Wooden Stick (One-Handed Blunt)]

Attack Power: 8 Blunt.

Item Description: A crude weapon crafted from tree branches, capable of generating a certain amount of lethal force when swung with full strength. It is said that the wooden stick was the first weapon created by ancient humans, and thus it becomes the sole companion and defense for penniless Returnees.

Isn't this too shabby? They don't even give you cloth garments?

Xiao Jie muttered inwardly, familiarizing himself with the key bindings. As a professional gamer with over a decade of gaming experience, he figured out the game's control scheme in almost no time.

WASD for movement, left-click to attack, right-click to block, able to run and jump—a standard over-the-shoulder perspective control scheme.

To his amazement, the game's motion module was quite impressive. By making subtle mouse adjustments, he could attack and block from different directions. This was somewhat similar to Mount & Blade, but Mount & Blade only allowed attacks from four directions, whereas this game permitted attacks and defenses from every different angle.

He could also roll and jump, and use button charges to unleash heavy strikes, which bore some resemblance to Souls-like games.

Yet what left Xiao Jie feeling most incredible was the game's realism; both the animations and impact feel were immensely authentic.

Generally, online game characters felt rather "floaty" when operated, but this game completely lacked that floaty sensation. Its handling entirely surpassed the AAA single-player blockbusters Xiao Jie had played. The game was even excessively realistic, to the extent that playing it gave a strong sense of latency—clearly the button had already been pressed, but the character's movements always seemed half a beat slow.

However, Xiao Jie knew this was no flaw. In fact, it was precisely the game's astonishing feature. This performance was actually closer to real-life human behavioral patterns. At first it would feel somewhat unfamiliar, but once mastered, it would produce a strong sense of immersion.

When it all came down to it, every game was some form of reality simulation. The more realistically it simulated, the stronger the player's immersion would be, and consequently the sense of achievement gained after defeating enemies would also grow greater.

What surprised him even more was the method of interacting with NPCs, which did not use dialogue boxes.

He walked up to an old NPC man wanting to converse with him, only to find no dialogue options. At that moment, a system prompt popped up on the interface.

[System Prompt: Players can use voice to interact with surrounding characters.]

Voice interaction?

Xiao Jie thought to himself, for real? So advanced?

"Hello!" he tried speaking into the microphone.

Yet that old man genuinely seemed to hear his words, nodding at him.

"Hello there, young man. Judging by your appearance, you must be a Returnee."

Crap, it actually works! Xiao Jie felt increasingly shocked. So intelligent? Could this be legendary artificial intelligence technology?

Interest welled up in his heart at once. He wondered just how intelligent this game's artificial intelligence truly was.

Could it fully simulate an elderly person's linguistic and behavioral logic? If that could genuinely be achieved, it would be too formidable. Just how high must the freedom of this game be?

"Yes, old timer. This one is Hidden Moon Follows Wind, newly arrived in this place. Might I ask what place this is?"

"This is Ginkgo Valley, and our village is called Ginkgo Village, under the jurisdiction of Wind Whisper Province. However, ever since the Great Calamity descended, we lost contact with the provincial government. Nowadays there are demons and ghosts everywhere outside. If little brother likes it here, you should stay a few more days. Some other Returnees came by a short while ago, but they left without staying long to head outside the village. Who knows whether they're living or dying now... sigh"

Listening to the old man's words, Xiao Jie felt incomparable shock in his heart.

Although it was merely a few simple sentences of dialogue, this level of interactivity was entirely close to a real person.

What Liu Qiang said was correct; this game was definitely an existence capable of changing the future.

Moreover, he had to admit that the game's optimization was truly somewhat impressive. Although it was an online game, it ran even more smoothly than single-player titles with immensely realistic graphics, allowing his old rig equipped with a 1060 graphics card to still run it smoothly.

He could already wait no longer to go outside and explore. As long as the combat portion of the game had no issues, it undeniably possessed boundless prospects.

At this moment Han Luo also ran over, so Xiao Jie thanked the old man, and the two walked toward the outside of the village.

"Don't go out there, it's very dangerous outside," that old man was still nagging, worry unable to be concealed in his gaze.

Yet both of them were riding a wave of enthusiasm at the moment and paid it no mind at all.

They strode eagerly toward the outside of the village.

Five minutes later—

The two found the first mob in the game.

"This fellow looks a bit fierce."

Xiao Jie held his wooden stick, hiding behind the bushes as he looked at the Lost Soul Bandit ahead, and said with concern.

That was a burly man wearing studded leather armor. The dilapidated armor could not conceal his imposing physique. Broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, he carried a large saber on his shoulder. Bloodstains seemed to still linger on that rust-covered blade, and the bandit's face displayed a distorted, frenzied expression while his eyes were extremely hollow, presumably related to the words "Lost Soul." Under the ultra-high resolution, he appeared even more murderous by comparison.

By contrast, the two of them—bare-chested and holding a single wooden stick—could not have been more shabby.

"What is there to fear? Merely a small mob near the village entrance, how formidable could it possibly be? Let's smash him!" Han Luo did not care in the least, itching to go up and aggro the monster.

Xiao Jie thought so too. Monsters in games with this kind of dark art style were generally made to look quite frightening, but once the fighting actually started, it probably amounted to nothing much.

Besides, it was just a game after all; it didn't matter even if he got killed. Respawning and starting over would do.

"Alright, I'll go up first to pull the aggro, you sneak attack from behind."

"Received."

The two rushed toward that bandit one after the other.

Seeing them, the bandit likewise waved his large saber and charged at Xiao Jie.

Xiao Jie swung out with a stick, but the bandit neither dodged nor evaded, instead chopping down head-on with a saber of his own. Xiao Jie deliberately wanted to test this monster's damage, so he similarly had no intention of dodging, directly trading damage blow for blow.

Bang! -7.

Squish! -28.

While the wooden stick struck the bandit, Xiao Jie also took a blow from the bandit's saber.

(Crap, what insanely high damage! What happened to the beginner mobs at the village entrance?)

Watching his health bar instantly drop by a third, Xiao Jie was greatly startled. The game's design was too utterly malicious—even the small mobs at the village entrance were this fierce.

Seeing the bandit swing his saber to slash again, Xiao Jie dared not trade blows with him anymore, instead raising his stick to parry while retreating.

This game featured a parrying function; holding the right button while moving the mouse could adjust the direction of the parry. Similarly, the direction of an attack could also be adjusted when striking. Therefore, theoretically, as long as one judged the opponent's attack direction at the instant they executed a move and aligned toward the same direction to parry, they could defend against the enemy's attack.

However, theory remained merely theory. Because attack angles could be freely chosen, one had to judge the enemy's attack direction in a split second and execute a parry. This operation was undoubtedly quite difficult.

Even the slightest flaw could lead to a defense failure. Fortunately, Xiao Jie's gaming skill was extraordinary.

Clang, he blocked a blow.

Yet the second and third strikes followed closely after, and the saber momentum was extremely fast. Xiao Jie parried repeatedly.

Even with Xiao Jie's extraordinary gaming skill, he only managed to barely block two strikes. When blocking the third strike, his angle was just slightly off, and his defense was breached by the opponent, taking a slash to his body.

-33!

Blood splattered everywhere, leaving him with only a sliver of health from this single strike.

Looking at his character's blood-soaked appearance, a trace of unease inexplicably arose in Xiao Jie's heart, as if his life were truly hanging by a thread.