A Start So Wonderful It's Never Been Seen Before

The explosion of comments in the livestream chat was entirely within Bai Fu's expectations.

With such a cool entrance, plus the white hair buff she'd specifically given herself, if she couldn't capture players' souls with this, she might as well just smash her head into a tofu.

But to see how much popularity she could accumulate, she'd have to let the bullets fly a bit longer.

Bai Fu opened her game panel.

After killing the brute, she gained 150 experience points, just enough to level up.

[Unemployed] leveled up to Level 3, Strength+1, Constitution+1, Attribute Points+1]

Bai Fu's stats changed slightly.

[Template]: Normal
[Experience]: 71
[Main Profession]: Unemployed Level 3 (0/1000)
[Sub Profession]: None
[Health]: 60/60
[Stats]: Strength5, Agility3, Constitution6, Intelligence 3, Spirit4, Inspiration3
[Skills]: None
[Talents]: None
[Attribute Points]: 1
[Reputation]: 1

Bai Fu added the free attribute point to Constitution. With 7 points in Constitution, her health bar doubled that of a regular grunt, making her worthy of being called an elite monster.

The bad news was that the ceiling for the "Unemployed" class was Lv5. To continue improving her strength, she urgently needed to learn a new profession.

The good news was that the game didn't have a hard limit on the number of professions, so she could learn a new one freely.

This was one of the differences between Above the Stars and other games. Players could use experience to unlock new main profession slots, allowing them to learn more professions.

However, it was generally not recommended to learn too many professions simultaneously. Humans have limits. Even a saintly hero trying to train many professions would fall behind the main player progression due to a lack of experience, thus missing out on many major events.

In the early stages, it was better to specialize in a certain profession, unlock high-level skills and talents, and then consider profession combinations.

Regarding her future leveling direction, Bai Fu had already made plans.

The so-called "mixed learning" was a study of how to level up effortlessly.

In terms of stat allocation, she would focus on Constitution and secondarily Agility, primarily aiming to run away when unable to win.

She had spent the most time considering her main profession. Above the Stars currently had four main schools open: the Tech School, Body Cultivation School, Spiritual Energy School, and Spirit School. Each school contained a vast number of main professions.

The Zu Yuan Star, where she was located, was a beginner planet themed around the "Wasteland." It only allowed learning some Tech School, Body Cultivation School, and Spiritual Energy School main professions.

At this stage, Bai Fu leaned more towards the latter two.

It wasn't that the Tech School wasn't strong, but the latter two were more cost-effective.

She would first learn a tank profession or a support profession that could buff her to increase survivability.

As for what came next, it would depend on how much popularity she gained and how much gold players could help her extract from the developers.

After closing the game panel, Bai Fu opened the Abandoned Cooling Plant section of the Star Travel Society again.

As soon as she entered, she saw players going wild.

[Big sister with white hair, quickly use your ultimate sock insult on me!]

[Foot fetish pervert, go die!]

[You're actually secretly filming? Where is morality, where is the bottom line, where is her home address?]

[I've been waiting so long, where's Galio? Why hasn't he reached level 6 yet?]

As she watched, a link popped up before her eyes.

[A player posted a female NPC poll on the general forum next door. Everyone, quickly go vote! Click ↑]

[You damn liar, that's a phishing site! This is the real link: ***]

Bai Fu's mouth twitched.

She didn't click the link but opened the general forum herself.

The reason for all this was that not long ago, a player from the Abandoned Cooling Plant had posted a video of Bai Fu on the general forum, saying she was the most beautiful female NPC in Above the Stars and challenging anyone to debate.

This move immediately attracted a flood of videos and photos.

Subsequently, a player collected these videos and photos and created a separate voting thread:

The First Above the Stars Most Popular Female NPC Competition

As soon as the post was published, it immediately attracted the attention of countless players.

They immediately held cyber battles in the thread.

[I can only say that cuteness is worthless in the face of sexiness.]

[Impossible, my wife Mary Rose is invincible!]

[I laughed, Tifa is the best.]

[You guys don't understand how beautiful a rich woman can be.]

[Why didn't you include the giant mecha from the promotional video as an option? How dare you say her gender isn't female?]

[I choose the mecha girl, she's the people's choice!]

Bai Fu clicked in to find the fierce debate still raging.

There were 43 contestants in total, and after more than an hour of fighting, the first and second places were already fixed.

The giant mecha that appeared in the promotional video was far ahead on the leaderboard, displaying a terrifying and despair-inducing dominance.

Trailing behind it was the NPC from the closed beta who was resurrected by the developers under player pressure.

As for third place, it had been constantly changing.

Bai Fu scrolled down and found herself in 15th place.

[Unethical Mysterious Girl X]

"There are quite a few experts."

This ranking was pretty good, because those ranked above her had either appeared in the game's PV or had already gained some popularity during the closed beta.

As a complete stranger, she wouldn't even have qualified to participate.

But thanks to a wave of performance, she had managed to break into the upper half of the leaderboard!

Bai Fu nodded slightly.

What a shame, if the special effects during her appearance had been cooler, her ranking would have surely climbed higher.

She casually refreshed the post, and then, something magical happened. Her votes increased by 108 at once, jumping from 15th to 14th place.

Huh?

Bai Fu thought she was seeing things and quickly refreshed the post again.

The fact that she wasn't mistaken was confirmed because her votes increased by another 30+.

Weird.

Her votes had been increasing by one or two at a time just moments ago. Could someone have messed up their vote-buying and accidentally sent them her way?

Bai Fu browsed through the post and finally understood the situation.

It turned out that Digging Princess had made a sudden entrance and unleashed her ultimate move.

Digging Princess had been quietly voting until she saw a player comment on Bai Fu saying, "What's the use of being good-looking? You'll quickly disappear without a trace." Digging Princess immediately became enraged.

You're not allowed to insult my favorite Mysterious Girl X!

Digging Princess used the skill [Over-Interpretation].

[I can guarantee that Mysterious Girl X is definitely a very important plot NPC!]

Even though Bai Fu had only appeared for a few minutes with just a few lines of dialogue, she managed to write a two-thousand-word essay explaining that Bai Fu was no ordinary person.

[In my opinion, she's most likely a spy sent by some organization to Wildfire Gang. As for whether she's related to the main storyline, that remains to be verified later.]

Players who didn't know Digging Princess were stunned after reading the post.

Especially those who were struggling with the essay were practically begging her to teach them.

How can you write so much?

Players who knew Digging Princess immediately started to mock her.

[Everyone, disperse. Digging Princess is acting up again.]

[It's possible Digging Princess guessed correctly, but it's highly unlikely Digging Princess would guess correctly.]

Facing the doubt, Digging Princess remained very calm.

It doesn't matter.

A storm cannot fell a tree that has already fallen!

[If you don't believe me, let's wait and see.]

If she guessed wrong, she'd continue to lie low. If she guessed right, she'd jump out and gloat!

Digging Princess's [Over-Interpretation] wave was highly effective, directly drawing a large amount of attention to Bai Fu.

Some players were true fans.

Others were simply looking for entertainment.

But regardless of their purpose, they cast their votes for Bai Fu.

One vote here, one vote there, Bai Fu soared.

15, 14, 12!

[10th place, holy crap, I'm in the top ten!]

[Damn it, why aren't you voting? Vote! All of you vote for me!]

The other NPCs' supporters immediately panicked at this sight.

"Referees, someone's cheating!"

They couldn't care less and quickly went to call for reinforcements.

No one expected this originally low-profile voting event to become the hottest activity since the server opened.

[We're sixth! Everyone, lend your energy to my wife!]

[Oh, Unity Strength, let your roar destroy all obstacles!]

In just 20 minutes, Bai Fu had bulldozed her way from 15th to 7th!

But this wasn't her limit.

30 minutes, 6th!

47 minutes, 5th!

On her way to challenge 4th place, she encountered strong resistance.

But so what?

[We unite!]

After half an hour of tug-of-war, Bai Fu had completely drained her opponent's vote bank, securing 4th place before the voting deadline.

Yes, 4th place!

This wasn't like ranking 4th out of four people in an exam, but 4th out of 43 participants!

If the voting hadn't ended, Bai Fu felt she might have even surpassed that big sister playing the lute in a revealing outfit.

The Bard unleashed her ultimate at point-blank range, building a wall of sighs with the support of perverts, but the jester's sword was not without its edge!

Seeing the final results, all of Bai Fu's supporters cheered heartily.

[We're champions!]

[Holy crap! Amazing!]

Of course, some players were unconvinced, arguing endlessly over who deserved third and fourth place.

[LOL, only fourth, far from third.]

[What did Mysterious Girl X ever do to you?]

[Classic.]

[Are you triggered?]

[Filial.]

The two sides argued for a long time without a clear winner, finally agreeing to settle the score in the second competition.

[The Bard is the best!]

[Nonsense, Mysterious Girl X is the best!]

This dispute unexpectedly brought Bai Fu a lot of attention.

Bai Fu: "6."

Digging Princess was truly a woman of astonishing wisdom.

She never expected her appearance to generate such popularity; she could only say she'd never had such a wonderful start.

However, she also knew that such popularity was very Void.

The jesters came and went quickly.

Right now, she was like getting fourth place in the highest kindergarten class. As the game's plot progressed, she would encounter many more experts.

In the 1.0 version, [Dark Star Budding] alone, Above the Stars had opened many new beginner planets with diverse themes for players to choose freely.

These beginner planets had their own main quests, and hidden within them were many exciting side stories. Imagine how many popular NPCs would emerge from these stories!

Not only that, but the habitable planets controlled by cosmic forces like "Rebirth Empire", "Supernova Battle Group", and "Titan Industries" mentioned on the official game website were countless. How many heroes would emerge from so many planets?

Countless, simply countless!

Bai Fu steeled herself.

Damn it, I'll go all out against them!

She didn't believe she couldn't rise to the top.

Next, she would focus on improving her strength while consolidating her skyrocketing popularity.

Bai Fu thought of Digging Princess's post.

Undercover?

A good way to whitewash her image.

To show her gratitude to Digging Princess, she'd copy it!

Lost in thought, Bai Fu had already arrived near her home.

She looked up, silhouetted against the afterglow of the sunset. Standing under the weathered sign of [Lingqu Factory] by the roadside was a person.