The 47th hour and 55th minute since the players had left Transia.
In the midnight chamber beneath Blood Eagle Corridor, Murphy waited quietly in the darkness. On the sixty platforms before him lay his little players, while ten empty spaces awaited the arrival of newcomers.
Those ten slots were the manpower Murphy had received in return for rescuing more than 1,800 people beneath Blood Eagle Corridor. More than a hundred had left afterward, so the total number of test slots they'd earned was exactly sixteen.
But announcing sixteen slots sounded a little too shady, so Murphy had kept six in reserve, planning to release them together with the next batch.
The vampire lord waited patiently.
In the darkness, he stroked his core orb, constantly weaving and revising the quests he was about to release. He'd gotten very good at this. It was just like deceiving people: at first, you felt embarrassed and guilty, but once you got the hang of it, you could soon turn it into an art.
When the countdown to the major update ended, Murphy took a deep breath and cast the summoning spell once more.
His psionic pool had grown large enough, and some of his potential had been unlocked, so he could summon all the players in one go. Of course, it was exhausting! Like that feeling when a wonderful, self-indulgent session ended with your kidneys feeling drained.
The veteran players had already bound their save points, so Murphy no longer needed to summon them.
But new players were different.
Every new player had to be summoned personally by Murphy the first time they logged in, like some bizarre "authentication ritual."
Fortunately, Murphy was a vampire.
Their race had all sorts of traditions, and they'd always placed great importance on "ceremony."
Flickering points of psionic