Time rewound forty minutes.
Nuoqi Village.
The village was a little different from usual today. Many villagers working around town were secretly watching the two young strangers who had just come out of the village chief's house.
That was hardly surprising. Just from their appearances alone, the two of them seemed completely out of place in poor, remote Nuoqi Village.
One wore finely crafted leather armor with a wooden longbow slung across his back, while the other was even more extraordinary. He wore a robe that, supposedly, only important figures capable of using "magic power" were qualified to wear.
The villagers privately speculated that these two outsiders must have come from "Huodian City." They just couldn't figure out why the pair had come to this poor, run-down village in the middle of nowhere.
But in reality, the villagers had all guessed wrong. Not only had the two not come from "Huodian City," they were currently racking their brains over how they could possibly get into the city.
That was right. If Liao Zixuan had been here, his eyes would definitely have lit up as he shouted, "Just as I thought! The classics from novels really didn't lie to me!" He would have been incredibly excited.
Because above the heads of these two "outsiders" in the village, two lines of text were floating—text that the native inhabitants of this world couldn't see.
A Bite of Big Watermelon
Melee God of Magic
The unique "nickname" system belonging exclusively to players!
Yes, the outsiders in the villagers' eyes were none other than our beta testers from another world!
And the reason they had come to Nuoqi Village was actually very simple.
They had nowhere else to go!
"Watermelon, it's been so many weeks, but our activity range is still limited to these outlying villages. The closed beta only has half a month left. If we don't hurry up and explore more content, we'll miss our chance!"
The player wearing a robe, who was presumably in the "Spellcaster" class, was complaining bitterly to his companion.
The Hunter player carrying a bow and arrows—namely, "A Bite of Big Watermelon"—also sighed helplessly.
"Ugh, that's how it is for us. Isn't it pretty much the same for everyone else?"
"I browse the game forums every day, and I've talked to people in the community several times. Nobody has any ideas. Everyone says it was deliberately designed that way by the developers!"
It turned out that a month ago, the highly anticipated immersive virtual-reality masterpiece, "Fall of the Gods," had finally issued its first batch of beta-test qualifications.
Major streamers, studios, video creators, and tens of millions of players who had pre-registered had long since swarmed the few available beta slots like sharks smelling blood, snatching them all up.
Everyone wanted to seize the initiative and experience-test this super-production from a new era. After all, anyone who wasn't blind could see its enormous potential and influence.
Anyone who managed to make a name for themselves in it might never have to worry about food and drink for the rest of their life.
Of course, many people genuinely loved games and wanted to experience the legendary fully immersive virtual reality: another world possessing absolute intelligence, a world that had a "god."
That was why so many people treasured their beta qualifications. They wished they could split every second into ten parts, doing everything possible to learn about and explore as much of this brand-new world as they could.
Even if this was only a "closed beta," and all accounts would be wiped and their basic data deleted at the end.
After all, data was dead, but people were alive. Just relying on the experience gained during the beta could save them from countless detours and put them far ahead of everyone else.
Perhaps the developers had realized this too. Thus, in the name of fairness, although the game was ostensibly an "open world" meant for players to explore freely, the starting locations of all the beta testers had actually been set at the edges of the map, far from the major cities, in one remote and isolated countryside village after another.
In other words, beginner villages.
That alone would have been fine, but what was even more outrageous was that after an expert had gone through countless hardships and fought all the way from a beginner village to the gates of Huodian City, they were informed that the entire city was under a state of emergency. Outlanders without entry permits were forbidden from entering.
"Isn't this obviously cutting off our entire activity range?"
Melee God of Magic grumbled unhappily.
However, "A Bite of Big Watermelon" beside him suddenly smiled mysteriously. He first glanced around furtively like a thief, then moved closer and whispered to his companion:
"I thought the same thing a few minutes ago, but I don't anymore."
"What? What do you mean? Do you have a way in?" Melee God of Magic's eyes instantly lit up, and he hurriedly pressed him for an answer.
"Do you remember the quest we just accepted?"
"Quest?"
The two had just arrived in Nuoqi Village from somewhere else. Naturally, the first thing they did was the players' old routine: wandering around the village aimlessly to see whether there were any NPCs who could issue quests.
They were both old hands at this sort of thing. Before long, they had three or four quests on them, but they were all ordinary ones, such as hunting low-level monsters, helping make tools, and finding a little girl who had gone missing.
But the problem lay with the final quest!
Find the Girl Who Entered Claw Forest to Gather Herbs and Has Yet to Return
Quest Description: Recently, Anlu, the good-for-nothing of Nuoqi Village, had a son fall gravely ill and become bedridden. His eldest daughter Vivian had entered Claw Forest alone to search for medicinal herbs to cure her brother, but she had failed to return even after an entire night. After learning the news, anxious Anlu wanted to ask you to enter Claw Forest and find and bring back his missing daughter.
Quest Rewards: 15 copper coins, 60 Experience Points
At first glance, didn't it look just like one of those commonplace daily quests?
As luck would have it, Big Watermelon had been cautious. After accepting the quest at Anlu's home, he curiously tossed an Investigation skill at the other man's younger son, who was lying sick in bed inside the house.
The result was fine if he didn't look, but the moment he did, he was startled.
Because
Andy
Level: 5
Status: Deeply Poisoned (???)
Main Class: Apprentice Mage
Subclasses: Villager Lv1, Fire God Follower Lv1
Holy crap!
An Apprentice Mage!?
Even among this batch of beta testers, that class was enough to cause quite a stir. After all, not a single player had managed to find a way to obtain the "Mage" class so far.
Despite having taken the name Melee God of Magic and pretended to be a mage by wearing a robe, he hadn't even touched the threshold of the "Apprentice Mage" class.
Yet a mage—a class that could be called a "noble profession" even among the Professionals—had actually appeared in a poor little countryside village, on the younger son of a gambling deadbeat, no less.
This was simply—
far too abnormal!
And what the hell was this "Fire God Follower" subclass? Why were there three question marks after "Deeply Poisoned" in the other person's status bar?
This was the first time Big Watermelon had seen information displayed with "?" in "Fall of the Gods" throughout all these days of beta testing.
From top to bottom, Anlu's strange younger son practically had the words "I have a huge secret" written across his forehead.
And the key to uncovering this secret definitely lay in the corresponding quest: finding the herb-gathering girl who had entered Claw Forest and failed to return!
Big Watermelon speculated that this was very likely only an introductory quest, one that could trigger an even larger hidden quest chain later on!
This was where one could see what a high-end player was like.
An ordinary player would probably have been unable to sit still and would have rushed excitedly to Claw Forest long ago, but Big Watermelon wasn't in a hurry.
He suppressed his excitement, which led to the scene at the very beginning: the two of them walking out of the village chief's house.
Big Watermelon had pretended to make small talk, but his real goal was to gather information and learn more about Anlu's family.
It would have been fine if he hadn't investigated. But once he did, he discovered something even more shocking than the appearance of the "Mage" class!
Anlu had gone completely bankrupt after racking up gambling debts and having his younger son contract a strange illness. For money, he had actually used his connections to contact the steward of a certain prominent family in "Huodian City," planning to sell his eldest daughter Vivian into servitude!
Big Watermelon didn't care about other people's family affairs, nor did he care how miserable the girl named Vivian was after being sold as an object by her own father.
They were all just Cannon Fodder NPCs from the early stages, after all.
Compared to that, Big Watermelon cared much more about the information conveyed by this quest—in other words, that through this quest, he might be able to find a way to—
get to "Huodian City"!
At this point, even Big Watermelon could no longer sit still. After briefly explaining everything to the still-confused Melee God of Magic beside him, the two of them hurried straight toward Claw Forest.
However, they had only just entered the forest when a sudden, earth-shaking boom erupted from deeper within, instantly attracting their attention.
After exchanging a glance, their hearts gave a jolt, and they quickly moved toward the source of the sound!
Before you continue