Mario is the Standard for Beginner Guides, What Filthy Pit Are You, Demon Village!

The Greenie, never one to mince words, had said that the player community unanimously agreed that even the first level of Demon Village should be a D-rank challenge, not E-rank. This was enough to prove just how notorious the Demon Village blueprint was among players.

Of course, its most infamous trait was being a "newbie killer." Once a player's skill surpassed a certain threshold, their probability of dying in Demon Village would drastically decrease.

Take the Super Mario Brothers levels 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4, which were also popular newbie trials. Especially 1-1, which practically held the player's hand, teaching them how to defeat enemies, how to get mushroom coins, and how to obtain power-ups. There was absolutely no need for veteran player guides.

And 1-4 even thoughtfully placed a fixed mechanism behind the level boss, the "Fake Bowser," at the deepest part of the castle, which could trigger a terrain kill on the boss. As long as you were clever and brave enough, you could safely pass without a direct fight and rescue the Princess... oh no, Toad 1.

Frankly, Nintendo's level design guidance here was god-tier, a textbook example for the gaming industry. Even players with zero experience could quickly understand the gameplay. The same scene, when moved to the Chosen Evolution Space, could achieve the same guiding effect, without even needing to configure newbie guides.

Few enemies, no traps, many treasures, high fault tolerance. Even if a player's talent was utter garbage, as long as they methodically obtained treasures like the "Super Mushroom" and "Fire Flower"—

What Goomba, what Koopa Troopa... facing players throwing fireballs, you Koopa Kingdom grunts should be the ones running!

With the Mario Brothers levels as a comparison, Demon Village, which was essentially created by the developers to frustrate players, deserved to be demonized for all the players who died there.

By the way, the other two dungeon blueprints with reputations comparable to Demon Village were Mega Man and Battletoads. However, the latter two hid their fangs for a few more levels, luring players in before killing them. Demon Village, on the other hand, didn't care about anything and just killed you right from the start!

Whether Cheng Tian had 5,000 coins was unconfirmed for the time being, but a Knight Armor that could withstand any single attack was openly displayed before everyone.

This meant that Cheng Tian not only crawled out of the Demon Village cesspool but was also the main contributor to the raid. Otherwise, the key to opening the door and delivering the armor after killing the boss wouldn't have fallen into his hands.

But if they knew that the Red Imp Cheng Tian faced was an elite template, and the ogre he faced was a Champion Template, and that he took them all down in solo fights... they probably wouldn't be able to react at all.

Because that wasn't a newbie trial at all, but a newbie slaughterhouse!

"Hey! Are you doing this on purpose, kid? Marking up a Knight Armor for five 9s? You think you're going to heaven or something?!"

Upon seeing Cheng Tian price the armor at 99999, Old Fan immediately started complaining.

The players who had gathered around to listen to the gossip, having heard an explosive revelation, mostly nodded in agreement, but few immediately turned around and left.

Because it was obvious that Cheng Tian was artificially inflating the price, waiting for buyers to haggle. It was the kind of behavior where someone didn't have a clear understanding of the market price and was shifting the pressure of pricing onto the buyer.

If there were fewer people, there might be a chance to snag a bargain, but with so many people, the nature of the situation was about to change.

Squinting at the surging crowd and the rapidly increasing number of stall messages, Cheng Tian was somewhat surprised.

Although most of them were probably just there for the spectacle, it also showed that the target audience for this Knight Armor... seemed to be quite large?

Yes, that's right. Quite a few people were interested in the Knight Armor, and some were even contacting others on the spot, showing signs of the scene getting out of control.

The reason was that Cheng Tian seemed to have underestimated the rule-based damage resistance ability that the Knight Armor provided at the cost of occupying six equipment slots and having only 1 durability point.

Blocking a planet-destroying cannon was definitely an exaggeration, but it definitely had the qualifications to block a guaranteed kill attack from a powerful boss in a high-difficulty dungeon.

Although ordinary players only had six fixed item slots, just like the extra skills Cheng Tian obtained, there were naturally ways to expand the number of item slots in the space.

So, theoretically, after using the Knight Armor to block an attack, immediately switching to backup equipment would allow one to continue normally maintaining their tank position, making it a very strategically valuable item.

And despite being the lowest-level magic equipment that could theoretically be obtained in batches, there was almost no substitute for it in the space.

For example, in the most popular Super Mario series dungeons, the "Invincibility Star," which could grant people a state of near-invincibility, could not be brought out of the dungeon most of the time. And the "Super Mushroom," which could make people bigger and stronger, seemed to be able to absorb damage at the cost of becoming smaller, but the damage taken before becoming smaller had to be fully endured by the player.

For ordinary players, a Knight Armor that would break after one hit wasn't very useful and was even inferior to a set of white-grade leather armor.

But in specific community circles like high-end boss raiding groups, all three sets of Knight Armor from Demon Village were in a state of high demand and priceless (not a typo).

This led to the Demon Village bounty missions that occasionally appeared in the player mission hall being snatched up by people camping there as soon as they were listed, and the armor, as loot, was almost monopolized.

The group of people in front of him weren't players who desperately needed the Knight Armor, but rather, they planned to be middlemen, buying from Cheng Tian and reselling it to those who needed it at a higher price.

"Crystal Option! I'll trade you a set of armor for it!"

Old Fan, who had somehow squeezed his way over, tried to haggle with Cheng Tian in a low voice, after all, Cheng Tian had shown considerable interest in the Crystal Option before.

Cheng glanced at him, twisted his old waist, and forcefully farted with his lower body, replacing his answer.

Clearly, Cheng had already realized the value of the Knight Armor. At this moment, the identities of the two sides had changed. Cheng Tian was the seller in this market, and Old Fan was the one who had to bleed.

"Crystal Option! Plus two items of your choice from my stall!" Old Fan clenched his fist.

"Four items." Cheng Tian held up four fingers.

"...Three! No more than that!" Old Fan's gums were about to bleed.

"Deal~"

Thus, Cheng Tian used only one Knight Armor from Demon Village to exchange for the "Famicom Big Four" set.

The listed price was over 25,000 coins, and the actual value was more than half of the listed price.

Seeing Cheng Tian take away all four of the most valuable items on his stall, Old Fan really wanted to shoot Cheng Tian twice, to see if he could self-repair like the headgear mask!

In terms of price alone, Old Fan had definitely lost out, but this item was a bargaining chip for transactions within a specific circle. With this chip, a lone wolf like him would have the opportunity to access information that wasn't often circulated externally.

Including but not limited to the acquisition channels for special equipment and items, title trigger conditions, skill stone drop sources, detailed dungeon information, and so on.

Sometimes expensive doesn't mean good, what suits you best is the best.

Old Fan painfully and happily put the Knight Armor into his personal space, still thinking about how this time he should be able to get the drop conditions for Max Payne's "Bullet Time" skill. But as soon as he turned his head, he saw another Knight Armor priced at 99999 appearing on Cheng Tian's stall