A Realistic Game

Even three days later, Zhao Xu still had not recovered from what Antinoa had told him.

Even the shock of transmigrating had not hit him as deeply as that revelation.

Transmigration was merely an opportunity. Arthur's complexity meant Zhao Xu might still accomplish almost nothing.

Even if he had managed to persuade his parents early on to throw their entire fortune into Arthur, with players starved for resources in the beginning, they would not have been able to trade for anything good.

Zhao Xu had only just transmigrated as well, so there were many matters he could only think through roughly for now, merely clarifying his future direction.

That night, after he had grown sleepy reading magical tomes and logged off to sleep, he lay alone in bed replaying the day's events. Only then did he quietly realize that he had somehow stepped in dog shit for the second time.

Zhao Xu's two roommates had both logged out before him. Their dorm leader, Zhang Qi, had chosen Fighter. In his Previous Life, that +2 Strength Belt had been half-sold, half-given to him by Zhang Qi.

Even when Zhao Xu logged out, Zhang Qi still had not recovered from the trauma of the Fighter training course.

Basically, every Fighter player had gone through the same class that night. They were first given a harsh demonstration of authority: the instructor struck at them with a wooden stick, while the Fighter trainees dodged.

Those nonlethal bruises had left Zhang Qi completely bewildered.

Zhao Xu had no way to persuade Zhang Qi to switch to some powerful profession either.

In his Previous Life, Zhang Qi had carefully saved the four remaining Resurrection Stones on that Fighter character, only to lose all of them in the Battle of Falling Star Lake two months later.

That battle had been the first large-scale conflict led and participated in by players. It was the grandeur of that battle that had sparked Arthur's first wave of popularity after launch.

Zhang Qi later changed professions, but none of them gave him the same feeling as before, so he eventually returned to being a Fighter.

Basically, everyone who logged off that night was complaining about Arthur's training system.

Many people went to the game forums to curse TC for being so arrogant and pretentious, daring to toy with players like this.

Arthur's game rating had also been dragged down by players' negative reviews over the past few days.

It was not until the third day that players began completing their training courses in significant numbers. Once players could finally go out and roam freely, the wave of quitting and bad reviews calmed down somewhat.

TC was strangely silent. They did not come out to explain anything, instead beginning to promote another of their major titles.

It was as if Arthur was merely a beautiful accident, not the centerpiece of the company's game lineup.

Basically, after the first night, Arthur's popularity gradually entered a lull of its own.

On the second day, while the servers had not yet been open for twenty-four hours, Zhao Xu told his parents a harmless lie. He had them each register an account, then log out once they reached the character creation screen.

Naturally, Zhao Xu would not stupidly tell them that he had transmigrated from ten years in the future, that Earth would be destroyed in a year, and everyone would have to make a living in Arthur.

If he said that, his parents would only drive over immediately and take him to a psychiatric hospital.

Even if Zhao Xu passed the examination, he would never be allowed to play this game again for the rest of his life.

So Zhao Xu simply claimed that he was optimistic about the game's prospects and told his parents to spend a little money collecting accounts, saying they would appreciate in value later.

Before logging in last night, Zhao Xu had planned to acquire some beta accounts.

But after discovering that his own beta account had directly run into one of Arthur's top organizations and become involved in an enormous main storyline, he lost his nerve.

Just as many doctors would not want their children to become doctors, it was not because being a doctor was bad. They would simply rather their children earn less and live ordinary, safe lives.

After hearing Zhao Xu's explanation about collecting accounts, his parents did not particularly care whether those accounts would appreciate.

But this was the first time their son had shown an eye for collecting, so of course they strongly supported him. Forget paying 299 to register an account—even 2,999 would not have been a problem.

For the remaining two days, Zhao Xu immersed himself entirely in Arthur. He basically logged in at eight every morning and stayed until four in the morning.

He only logged off two or three times in between to eat.

Players did not need to eat while projected into Arthur.

The consequences of that would only erupt a year later, when the entire population transmigrated.

Zhao Xu's madness, skipping classes outright like this, somewhat shocked his roommates.

But they were not his parents. They could only advise him a little and help cover for him when they could.

Zhao Xu was not courting death. He simply felt that time was quite pressing in the early stages.

This might also concern the Final Scroll's evaluation of him, so aside from eating, Zhao Xu basically stayed in Arthur every day, painstakingly studying the magical tomes Antinoa had provided at night.

During the day, he occasionally attended magic lectures held in the Floating City, most of which had been selected for him by Antinoa.

However, Antinoa had never allowed him to come into contact with spell models, nor had she taught him how to cast spells.

Zhao Xu could tell that Antinoa was training him the way Arthur trained native Wizards.

She was not using the standardized cramming method currently used for players, where the system made up for insufficient spellcasting ability.

Most of those magic lectures were far too profound for Zhao Xu.

Even though Antinoa had selected lectures focused purely on theory and concepts, he still found them utterly incomprehensible.

Yet Zhao Xu did not dare be inattentive. He had seen several of the lecturers' names recorded in magic history.

Who knew whether one of those big shots giving lectures might actually be the current leader of the Final Scroll?

Zhao Xu had not lied to his two roommates about his profession choice either. He had merely said that he had been teleported to Mystra.

Then he borrowed content from Wizard tutorials he had seen online in his Previous Life and roughly recounted it.

Aside from earning looks from his two roommates that said, "So you Wizards have it this miserable too," it also somewhat helped them understand why Zhao Xu had spent every moment outside of deep sleep playing the game these past few days.

Most of it was about proving something.

When faced with a game that tormented players, some people simply gave up.

Others endured it first, then turned around and cursed the game for being trash and no fun.

There was no right or wrong. Everyone simply made different choices.

Even Zhao Xu did not know when he would finally reach the end of those magical tomes.

He could only patiently wait and quietly observe the latest developments on the forums.

Among the more melee-oriented professions, players who had remained online continuously had already completed training and successfully taken up level 1 Basic Professions within three days.

The two major professions of Fighter and Barbarian even saw a small peak today. Players in nearly every town had completed their training.

However, those who had just completed training discovered that there were no beginner NPCs handing out quests, like asking them to kill a weasel at Aunt Wang's house by the village entrance.

The entirety of Arthur seemed to regard them as nonexistent—or rather, to regard them exactly like native inhabitants.

People had already begun to notice that players were not special.

Some self-proclaimed experts on the forums began analyzing the situation, believing it was a move by TC to develop a new gaming philosophy, one that surely contained some future trend.

Zhao Xu, someone who knew the future, naturally scoffed at such grand-strategy theorists.

If a player had not proven himself, had no reputation, stayed in a safely protected town, and lacked any special channels, where would all those quests come from for them to take?

Once players had made names for themselves half a year later, these would no longer be problems.

Whenever Zhao Xu ate, he refused to waste even a minute, constantly browsing the forums. Some places in Arthur even published newspapers.

Finally, after Zhao Xu finished his last bite of stir-fried pork with vegetables and was about to throw the takeout container into the trash before logging in, he suddenly noticed a post pushed to the trending page. It had been posted less than twenty minutes ago.

Zhao Xu hurriedly clicked in to take a look.

The post's title had already been highlighted and bolded—"Everyone, be careful when taking quests. This game has no beginner zones."

"My roommates and I are all melee types. Since we had just completed training, we agreed to go monster hunting in the wilderness together. Who knew we would happen to hear the sounds of battle? A quest delivered right to our doorstep—of course we charged in."

"We ran into ten goblins: six carrying morningstars and four holding javelins. They were besieging a merchant caravan. With the conviction that humans and monsters could never coexist, we charged right to the front."

"Who knew that after the four of us, together with the caravan's people, had finally managed to take down five goblins..."

"Damn it, more than a hundred goblins suddenly came out of nowhere. Some were even riding wolves, and they poured toward us from every direction."

"The merchant caravan we had helped was just as slippery. They ran without a word and did not even call for us."

"The main issue is that they put hundreds of monsters right around the beginner village. How are we supposed to level up? Won't players have to hold hands and gather a hundred people just to dare leave the village in the future?"

Zhao Xu silently read the player's message.

Someone below asked what happened to them in the end. There was no need to say it—they had used Resurrection Stones.

Some players in the game still thought this game had beginner villages.

Three days had passed, and they were still clinging to that fantasy.

As for the natives in the game, fleeing before battle was nothing. Even betraying players outright or swallowing the rewards from agreed-upon quests was not uncommon.

Because this game had Evil factions.

Basically, players would have to suffer for a week before reaching a consensus on that.

That was also why, later on, everyone tended to take quests from reputable large guilds and organizations.

Or from NPCs whose factions matched theirs and whose professions were trustworthy.

Quite a few players commented below that the game was incredibly realistic.

Zhao Xu could only smile bitterly. In his Previous Life, it had been realistic enough to destroy his family and ruin his life. Its realism was definitely beyond question.

But after Zhao Xu finished reading that post, he suddenly noticed another post being pushed to the top—"Help, after I killed an NPC, I got locked up. I deleted my character and registered again, but I was directly assigned to the Chaotic Evil faction. I can't play the Druid faction I wanted. What do I do?"

Thanks to Fengmo Swordsman, Reader 140913182907024, Hedberg, Xianji, Narsin, Xiege, Huanyue Tianyou, Outlook Under the Starry Night, Reader 20180510211319189, Moshanren R Yu, Handsome Enough to Alarm the Party Organization, Mengmeng Lemon, Reader 160516221115586, and Reader 201907001153336626 for their recommendation votes.