The explosion of bullet comments in the livestream chat had been completely within Bai Fu's expectations.
With such a handsome entrance, plus the white-haired buff she had deliberately given herself, if she still couldn't captivate the players, she might as well find a block of tofu and kill herself by smashing into it.
But to know exactly how much popularity she could accumulate, she still had to let the bullets fly a little longer.
Bai Fu opened the game panel.
After killing the burly man, she had gained 150 experience points, just enough to level up once.
[Jobless Wanderer] increased to Lv3, Strength +1, Constitution +1, Attribute Point +1
Bai Fu's attributes changed slightly.
[Template]: Ordinary
[Experience]: 71
[Main Class]: Jobless Wanderer Lv3 (0/1000)
[Secondary Class]: None
[Health]: 60/60
[Attributes]: Strength 5, Agility 3, Constitution 6, Intelligence 3, Spirit 4, Inspiration 3
[Skills]: None
[Talents]: None
[Attribute Points]: 1
[Reputation]: 1
Bai Fu put her free attribute point into Constitution. With 7 Constitution, her health bar rose to twice that of an ordinary grunt, making her fully worthy of being called an elite monster.
The bad news was that the whiteboard class Jobless Wanderer had a level cap of Lv5. To keep increasing her strength, she urgently needed to learn a new class.
The good news was that the game had no hard limit on the number of classes, so she could casually learn a new one.
That was one of the differences between Above the Stars and other games. Players could use experience to unlock new main-class slots and thereby learn more classes.
But generally speaking, it was still not recommended to learn too many classes at once. Humans had limits. Even if a hardcore grinder trained many classes simultaneously, a lack of experience would make it impossible to keep up with the main player base, causing them to miss many major events.
In the early game, it was better to specialize in one class, farm advanced skills and talents, and only then consider combining classes.
Bai Fu had already made plans for her future leveling direction.
The so-called mixed-class approach was an art of gaining points while lying down.
For attribute allocation, she would prioritize Constitution and take Agility as her secondary focus. The main strategy was simple: if she couldn't win, activate her ultimate and run.
As for her main class, she had spent the longest time considering it. Above the Stars currently had four available schools: the technology school, Body Cultivation Style, Spiritual Energy School, and the mental school. Each school contained a huge number of main classes.
Her current home, Zu Yuan Star, was a Novice Planet themed around the "wasteland." It only allowed players to learn some technology-school, Body Cultivation Style, and Spiritual Energy School main classes.
At this stage, Bai Fu leaned more toward the latter two.
It wasn't that the technology school was weak. The latter two simply offered better value.
She would first learn a tank class, or perhaps a support class that could apply buffs to herself and increase her survivability.
As for what came after that, she would have to see how much money the players could squeeze out of the developers for her once her popularity rose.
After closing the game panel, Bai Fu opened the Abandoned Cooling Plant section of the Star Travel Society.
The moment she entered, she saw players going completely insane.
[White-haired big sis, hurry up and use your ultimate boot humiliation on me!]
[Foot fetish pervert, go die!]
[She actually took a sneaky photo? Where are morality, the bottom line, and her home address?]
[I've been waiting forever. Where's Galio? How is he still not level 6?]
As she watched, a link suddenly appeared before her eyes.
[The General Forum has posted a female NPC poll. Everyone, go vote! Click ↑]
[Fuck your mother, that's a phishing site. This is the real link: ***]
The corner of Bai Fu's mouth twitched.
She did not click the link. Instead, she opened the General Forum herself.
The matter had begun like this. Not long ago, a player from the Abandoned Cooling Plant had posted Bai Fu's video in the general section, claiming that she was the best-looking female NPC in Above the Stars and challenging anyone who disagreed.
That move immediately lured out a pile of videos and photos.
Afterward, a player collected those videos and photos and created a separate poll thread—
<The First Above the Stars Most Popular Female NPC Contest>
The moment the thread was posted, it attracted the attention of countless players.
They immediately began a cyber spell battle in the thread.
[I can only say that cuteness is worthless in the face of sexiness.]
[Impossible! My wife Marie Rose is invincible beneath the heavens!]
[I'm laughing. Tifa is supreme!]
[You people have no idea how beautiful a rich woman can be.]
[Why wasn't the giant mecha from the promotional video included as an option? What gives you the right to say her gender isn't female?]
[I choose the mecha girl. She's the true choice of the masses!]
When Bai Fu clicked in, the battle was still raging.
There were 43 contestants in total. After more than an hour of fighting, first and second place had already solidified.
The giant mecha that had appeared in the promotional video was far ahead on the rankings, displaying a terrifying dominance that inspired despair.
Right behind it was the NPC who had been revived by the developers during the closed beta after being overwhelmed by the players' charge.
Third place, meanwhile, kept changing.
Bai Fu scrolled down and found herself in fifteenth place.
[Mysterious Girl X Who Doesn't Play by the Rules]
"There are quite a few experts here."
This was a very good ranking. Everyone ahead of her had either appeared in the game's PV or already accumulated some popularity during the closed beta.
Someone like her, a complete unknown, would not originally have even qualified to participate.
But relying on a single performance, she had forced her way into the upper half of the rankings!
Bai Fu nodded lightly.
What a pity. If the special effects during her entrance had been a little cooler, her ranking definitely could have risen further.
She casually refreshed the thread. Then something miraculous happened: her vote count suddenly increased by 108, jumping her from fifteenth to fourteenth place.
Huh?
Bai Fu thought her eyes were playing tricks on her and hurriedly refreshed the thread.
As it turned out, she had not seen wrong. Her vote count increased by more than thirty again.
Strange.
A moment ago, her votes had only been increasing one or two at a time. Could someone have been botting votes, made a mistake, and sent them her way?
Bai Fu searched through the thread and finally figured out what was happening.
It turned out that Digging Princess had made a flashy entrance and activated her ultimate.
Digging Princess had originally been voting in silence. But when she saw a player comment, "What's the use of being pretty? She'll disappear without a trace soon enough," she instantly became enraged.
How dare you insult my favorite Mysterious Girl X!
Digging Princess used the skill [Overinterpretation].
[I'll stake my reputation on this: Mysterious Girl X is definitely a hugely important plot NPC!]
Bai Fu had appeared for only a few minutes and spoken only a few lines, yet Digging Princess had managed to write a two-thousand-word essay explaining why Bai Fu was no ordinary person.
[In my view, she's most likely an undercover agent sent by some organization into the Wildfire Gang. As for whether she's connected to the main storyline, that still needs to be verified later.]
Players who did not know Digging Princess were stunned after reading the post.
The players who had been tormented into baldness by academic papers were especially close to kneeling before her.
How can you write so much?
The players who knew Digging Princess immediately began singing her downfall.
[Everyone, disperse. Digging Princess is having another episode.]
[Digging Princess might guess correctly, but the chances of Digging Princess guessing correctly are slim.]
Faced with the doubts, Digging Princess remained perfectly calm.
It didn't matter.
A storm could never knock down a tree that had already fallen!
[If you don't believe me, just wait and see.]
If she guessed wrong, she would keep pretending to be dead. If she guessed right, she would leap out and celebrate!
Digging Princess's [Overinterpretation] had an outstanding effect, directly bringing Bai Fu a huge wave of attention.
Some players genuinely became fans.
Others had simply come looking for entertainment.
But regardless of their motives, they all voted for Bai Fu.
One vote from you, one vote from me—Bai Fu ascended on the spot.
15, 14, 12!
[Tenth place! Holy shit, she made the top ten!]
[God damn it, why aren't you voting? Vote! Everyone, vote for her!]
The supporters of the other NPCs panicked when they saw this.
Referee, someone's cheating!
They had no time to worry about anything else and hurriedly called in reinforcements.
No one had expected this originally low-profile poll to become the hottest event since the game's launch.
[Sixth place! Everyone, lend your vitality to my wife!]
[The power called unity! With your roar, destroy every obstacle!]
In just twenty minutes, Bai Fu had cut through the rankings like a force of nature, rising from fifteenth to seventh!
But that still wasn't her limit.
Thirty minutes: sixth place!
Forty-seven minutes: fifth place!
On the road to challenging fourth place, she encountered powerful resistance.
But so what?
[We unite!]
After half an hour of sustained tug-of-war, Bai Fu forcibly drained her opponent's vote bank and secured fourth place before voting closed.
That's right, fourth place!
This wasn't fourth out of four contestants. It was fourth out of forty-three!
If voting time had not run out, Bai Fu felt she might even have surpassed that big sister in the cool outfit who played the qin.
Qinnü unleashed her ultimate at point-blank range, using the support of the perverts to build a Wall of Sighs. But the swords of the fun-seekers were not dull either!
When they saw the final results, all the players supporting Bai Fu cheered wildly.
[We're champions!]
[Holy shit! Amazing!]
Of course, some players were dissatisfied. They argued endlessly over who should take third and fourth place.
[Cringe. It's only fourth place, still far behind third.]
[What did Mysterious Girl X ever do to you?]
[Typical.]
[You're not having a meltdown, are you?]
[Pathetic.]
The two sides argued for a long time without reaching a conclusion. In the end, they agreed to settle the matter in the second contest.
[Qinnü is the coolest!]
[Nonsense! Mysterious Girl X is the coolest!]
This wave of arguments unexpectedly brought Bai Fu another huge amount of attention.
Bai Fu: "Nice."
Digging Princess really was a woman of astonishing wisdom.
She had never expected her entrance to earn her such a high level of popularity. All she could say was that there had never been such a wonderful start.
However, she also knew that this popularity was very flimsy.
Fun-seekers came and went in a hurry.
Right now, she was like someone who had taken fourth place in the senior kindergarten class. As the game's story progressed, she would encounter more and more experts.
In version 1.0 alone, [Dark Star Budding], Above the Stars had opened many Novice Planets with different themes for players to choose freely.
Each Novice Planet had its own main storyline, and countless exciting side stories were hidden beyond it. Just imagine how many highly popular NPCs would be born from those stories.
Not only that, but the universe-level factions introduced on the official game website, such as the Rebirth Empire, Supernova Battle Group, and Titan Industries, controlled an astronomical number of habitable planets. How many outstanding figures could emerge from so many planets?
Impossible to count. There were simply too many to count!
Bai Fu steeled her heart.
Damn it, she would blow up alongside them!
She refused to believe she couldn't rise to the top.
For now, she would improve her strength while consolidating her rapidly rising popularity.
Bai Fu thought of Digging Princess's post.
An undercover agent?
That was a good way to clear her name.
To show her gratitude to Digging Princess, she would plagiarize it!
While she was thinking, Bai Fu had already arrived near her home.
She raised her head. In the afterglow of the setting sun, a person stood beneath the [Lingqu Factory] sign by the roadside, its surface covered in mottled marks.
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