The Bully: How to Get Resources from a Stingy Neighbor

The Origin Altar.

Qi Sheng turned his gaze away from the direction of Emperor's Family Village.

Recently, the revenue from the Sacrificial Power of the Deterrence System has been soaring.

This feature, once considered a "useless system" by the vast majority of players, has finally gained attention from a large number of players, all thanks to the "advertising effect" brought by Tu Hu Wind Speech.

Especially the Tu Hu.

His basic attributes are not outstanding, and his Monster Soul level is not high, but with the "Sword of Civilization" that suits him, his combat power is comparable to that of Demigod. He is the undisputed strongest in the current Player Camp, without exception.

The process by which Wind Speech mastered the Sound Momentum was followed closely by Forum players from beginning to end.

His performance in the Testing Space was also analyzed in detail on the Forum.

All the players were amazed by the stunning performance of "sound range programming".

Within this realm, Wind Speech can Definition all information, serving as support for the team, a powerful Berserk force capable of breaking through enemy lines, or a key player in controlling the battlefield.

One person can take on multiple battlefield roles.

What excites Forum players even more is that the domain opened by Wind Speech can be permanently opened without any cost if it is not accompanied by the Monster Soul attribute.

Just like the Sword of Civilization Tu Hu, there is no consumption of Qi and Blood, energy, or mental strength when drawing or parrying.

Influenced by these two players, a large number of players began to study the Deterrence Field.

The Forum was in an uproar, with all sorts of speculations and attempts emerging.

And this is exactly the effect Qi Sheng wanted to see.

The current Player Camp appears to be steadily growing, with various systems such as Star Vein Slot, Body Tempering Level, and Rune Weapons flourishing. However, in his eyes, these are merely accumulations.

The differences in combat power, resources, and even rankings among players at this stage are not truly important.

But there is one thing that needs time to be honed: potential.

The Deterrence System was never a template-based enhancement system from the beginning; it was a personalized growth path tailored for players' future development.

Each player has a distinct personality, different experiences, and a different understanding of power.

The brilliance of the Deterrence System lies in its ability to integrate these unique characteristics with the power of pressure.

With the support of the Deterrence System, each player can forge a path that suits them best.

This complements the Star Vein System.

The Star Vein System has a fixed template, which can lay a solid foundation for players and build a strong foundation of power.

The Deterrence System, on the other hand, is responsible for unlocking potential, showcasing player individuality, and allowing each player to break through their own limitations and shine with their own unique brilliance.

One is firm, the other gentle; one is still, the other dynamic; the two complement each other.

Many players on the Forum are already clearly aware of this.

As a recent post by a Detailed Study Faction player revealed, his interpretation of Intimidation and Astral Veins is as follows:

My understanding is: the Star Vein System provides a solid foundation and a universal framework, like reinforced concrete, while the Deterrence System allows each player to build something unique on top of it, incorporating their personality, experiences, and so on.

Obsession, enlightenment—all seemingly ethereal things can be condensed into a unique power through overwhelming pressure.

These words also represent Qi Sheng's Definition of the Deterrence System.

The Black Tide System also has a similar setting in this respect.

The Evil Spirit Warrior within the Black Tide System have their power rooted in a fixed template, which is their foundation.

Towers, Auxiliary Eye, and temples of destruction (the complete unit Soldier Type Repository) – these can all be considered fixed power systems that every Evil Spirit Warrior can possess at the start of the game.

However, powerful Evil Spirit Warrior will create their own unique legion system based on their own circumstances.

Just like the "Pain Tide" created by the Di Nian Evil Spirit.

They are also learning and evolving, constantly accumulating experience and strength to become unique Evil Spirit Warrior.

The future battlefields will clearly not be a clash between the "template soldiers" of the major races.

When the Final Battle arrives, his goal is that the Player Camp will not have a uniform group of strong individuals. Each player will be able to forge unique power through the Deterrence System, and with the solid foundation of the Star Vein System, they will become combat forces that are difficult to Definition.

The Sword of Civilization Tu Hu, the Wind Speech whispers—these are just the beginning.

As players develop the Deterrence System, more players will plant the seeds of pressure on their path to growth.

Some players will rely on their own obsessions to forge unparalleled killing power, while others will use past bonds to condense the defensive might to protect their territory—players will explore all sorts of unique pressure systems and embark on their own personalized growth journey.

But Qi Sheng realized in his heart that the current players were still too weak.

Their understanding of the Deterrence System remains superficial, limited to the "emotional realm." They have explored the essence of pressure power and the degree of integration between their own traits and pressure to a very limited extent.

Most of the current attempts and speculations are only scratching the surface.

It is difficult to truly uncover the essence of the Deterrence System, let alone achieve any groundbreaking results.

But he wasn't in a hurry, and he never expected players to achieve success overnight.

In his eyes, the growth of Player Camp is inherently a long process of exploration, let alone this entirely new path of breaking away from established templates and tapping into one's own potential.

They still have plenty of time to experiment, make mistakes, and reflect, gradually understanding the meaning of the Deterrence System, and then integrating their own personality and experiences into the pressure, honing their own unique strengths.

What he needs to do is protect this opportunity for growth, and wait for players to transform from naive Explorer into powerful individuals capable of standing alone, using their unique strength to stand shoulder to shoulder on the final battlefield of the future, and compete with the various peerless powerful races that have emerged from the Monster World.

Thinking of this, a hint of anticipation appeared in Qi Sheng's eyes.

When that day comes, it will surely be spectacular.

In a future where stars shine brightly, a force even more powerful than the Black Tide may break free of its shackles, forging a new throne amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and making its grand entrance with an air of dominance over all others.

But he always believed that when all the stars shine, the players will be the most dazzling light among them.

As his thoughts raced, he stopped paying attention to the Forum's discussion about the Deterrence System.

Based on the feedback from the Guidance, turn your attention to the Imperial Family Mountains.

Sky Abyss Node, Evil Eye Tower Platform.

The Di Nian Evil Spirit's Perception swept across the "Mission Market" in the northwest corner of the Imperial Family Mountains.

After two months of accumulation, the originally chaotic task system was organized into a well-organized system thanks to the "watering" of a large amount of data.

During this period, the task system was improved.

The Evil Spirit spirits in the alliance only need to input the quest details into the quest system to automatically receive a rating, skipping the initial exploration phase where a Definition rating is required.

The distribution of task rewards has also completely departed from the past arbitrary practice. It is no longer a matter of giving more or less based on a momentary whim, but rather a set of standardized criteria has been established based on task difficulty, player efficiency, and completion quality. Every penny of the reward is under his control.

Every new player team or group that enters the Imperial Family Mountains Range and comes to accept a quest will be included in a continuously improving evaluation system.

Their mission completion efficiency, preferred combat styles, sensitivity to rewards, and teamwork patterns—all this information was silently recorded and analyzed by the Evil Eye, eventually coalescing into increasingly clear reports:

Player/team personality profile.

He knew exactly who was the type to be greedy for small gains, who was the steady and cautious type who focused on long-term benefits, who was the impulsive and reckless type who would do anything for resources, and even who was responsive to persuasion but not force, and he had recorded all of this in his "player strategy database."

This information helps it understand where the price floor is for a particular player team.

Next, it decided to test a "big data model" to make the task system more controllable.

With that in mind, it shared its thoughts with the Evil Eye.

The Evil Eye, which was collecting information, opened its eyes at this moment, its huge eyes revealing a human-like expression of doubt. "Bully, are you going to play big data price discrimination?"

Upon Di Nian Evil Spirit's forehead veins throbbed. "Who are you calling Bully?"

"You can respond when other players call you, but you can't when I call you?"

The Di Nian Evil Spirit took a deep breath, not wanting to argue with the Evil Eye about this issue, and then said in a deep voice, "What are the results of the analysis of my proposed solution?"

When questioned, Evil Eye briefly waved his tentacles before blinking. "It's true, the Player Race may seem like a unified whole, but each individual player, team, and group has its own independent thought process. The amount of reward doesn't necessarily depend on the intensity of the mission."

"Our analytical model shows that implementing differentiated rewards for different target profiles can theoretically save an average of 15%-35% of unnecessary resource waste, while maintaining task acceptance and completion rates. This is clearly feasible."

The Di Nian Evil Spirit nodded in agreement, about to clearly define how to implement this big data-driven price discrimination model.

"However—" Evil Eye's voice suddenly shifted, his enormous eyes slowly approaching the Di Nian Evil Spirit: "Bully, if you really want to try big data-driven price discrimination, perhaps you could add a key variable that could produce even higher cost-effectiveness."

"What variable?" The Di Nian Evil Spirit ignored the title "Evil Eye" and couldn't help but ask.

"A period of eager anticipation for a leap in combat power".

"What is that?" The Di Nian Evil Spirit was taken aback.

"Based on historical data analysis, most members of the Player Race experience a periodic power breakthrough phase. Before this breakthrough, their desire for resources significantly increases, their behavior changes, they become more risk-averse and willing to accept challenges, and their demand for immediate rewards outweighs their expectations of reasonableness."

After speaking, Evil Eye waved his tentacles and retrieved several video clips from the player strategy library.

The main character in the multi-layered lighting and shadow effects is a player wielding Battle Axe.

Look here.

The Evil Eye fast-forwarded the light and shadow to a certain point in time. The player in the scene had a steady fighting style, mainly relying on dodging and blocking, and aiming to end the battle without taking damage or with minimal losses.

"Next is this area, the 39 hours before his life level breakthrough."

The scene changes, and the same player's combat style suddenly becomes aggressive, frequently using high-consumption burst skills and actively challenging stronger Evil Spirits, resulting in a significant change in combat style.

"Next, here he broke through."

The light and shadow finally settled on the scene after the player completed the breakthrough, and the life strength value in the image changed significantly.

"After the breakthrough, his fighting spirit and adventurous tendencies quickly returned to their original levels. He even experienced a brief period of satisfaction where he became picky about the strength of Evil Spirits. This was the case for the vast majority of players. These retrospective data prove that this is not an isolated case. Similar pre-war behavioral signals were observed in over 84.83% of players during the cross-border war, with extremely high accuracy."

The Evil Eye withdrew the imagery and summarized, "Therefore, we can create a reference table based on the changes in the mental and Qi and Blood strength of specific players to indicate their 'desire for a power leap.' We can then adjust the reward amount for missions when they most urgently need resources—meaning we can not only exploit familiar players but also those in dire need, further improving resource utilization."

"By applying this model to a team, we can refer to the strength of their United Battle Formation or the state of most team members, and then determine the changes in the group's needs."

After listening to the Evil Eye's detailed explanation, the Di Nian Evil Spirit couldn't help but give a thumbs up and said in a player's style, "You really are a beast—but I like it."

The Di Nian Evil Spirit grinned, then its consciousness entered the player strategy database, examining in detail the "potential player traits" pointed out by the Evil Eye.

As Evil Eye stated, players have a desire for breakthroughs at different stages.

Based on past information retrieval, it seems to be related to spending resources for some kind of enhancement. There will be an aggressive period before enough resources are accumulated, and after the enhancement is completed, it will return to a normal state.

The strategy of exploiting both loyal customers and those in urgent need can be fully applied to the Mission Market.

Saving money is always a good thing.

Evil Eye's suggestion also sparked a deeper thought: saving money is about cutting costs, so why not—increase revenue?

Since players can be exploited by paying them rewards, is it possible to also extract some resources from these troublemakers who only take and never give?

"Evil Eye, do you think we could set up a system where we extract resources from the players instead? These beasts only take in and never give out; it's too much of a loss for us to be the only ones paying out."

The Evil Eye's enormous eyeball slowly rotated, its tentacles swaying unconsciously as it performed high-speed calculations.

A moment later, it gave a helpless response. "There is no clear direction at the moment. Players have very little interest in the technology of external civilizations. The knowledge systems possessed by the civilizations we devour are of zero value to us, and the same is true for the players. They are more interested in exchanging resources from us for absorption."

Hearing these words, the Di Nian Evil Spirit did not give up.

In the blink of an eye, several of the Evil Eye's main tentacles connected to the body, and it entered overclocked computing mode, beginning to sift through massive amounts of past data.

What do players crave most in terms of merchandise? What is their ultimate goal?

Information flows through its consciousness like a waterfall.

Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind: Primal Monster.

Those strange life forms that naturally arise throughout the Monster World, symbolizing the World Origin.

Players have an almost fanatical desire to hunt them. Based on past tests, it is clear that players can extract a certain "world rule level" power from the Primal Monster, which is crucial to their growth.

Even many of the abilities currently possessed by players can be definitively said to have originated from the Primal Monster.

This is a power that only players can wield.

For them, these Primal Monster, though powerful, cannot be completely killed. Even if they die, they will undergo some form of Life Reshaping and be reborn in an unknown location in the Monster World.

The shared database contains records of many Evil Spirit predecessors who attempted to capture Primal Monster Primal Monster detailed analysis, hoping to control their power, but none succeeded.

Even the attempts by monarchs ended in failure.

Currently, the Evil Spirit Alliance he founded controls hundreds of node regions. Occasionally, they encounter Primal Monster, but they are mostly treated as uncontrollable "background monsters," and he is too lazy to even kill them.

Because doing so is pointless.

With this in mind, a bold idea took shape in the mind of the Di Nian Evil Spirit.

"Evil Eye, could we capture Primal Monster from other Alliance nodes and transport them to the Emperor's Tomb Mountain Range region to sell them to players?"

Upon hearing this, Evil Eye paused for a moment, clearly taken aback by this "unusual" line of thought.

It quickly retrieves all records about the Primal Monster, as well as player behavior data when facing Primal Monster.

"Past information proves that players have a very strong desire for Primal Monster, so this idea is feasible. But what standard should we use to price them? And then charge players resources as rewards? The value of Primal Monster is difficult to measure using our existing resource system—the pricing power seems to be in our hands, but in reality, it is also in the hands of the players, because the only buyers are players, and there are no other competitors."

The Di Nian Evil Spirit remained silent, its mind quickly weighing its options.

Evil Eye is right.

They control the right to capture Primal Monster and seem to be able to set prices at will, but ultimately they cannot escape the problem of "no competitors," and only the player community is willing to buy.

They wouldn't even give the neighboring insectoid Insect Race a second glance.

If there are no other buyers bidding, setting a high price is pointless if the players don't accept it.

More importantly, the criteria for judging the value of Primal Monster have never been in their hands.

Only the player knows which type of monster is more attractive to them; they cannot judge the abilities of Primal Monster from the Primal Monster.

"Perhaps we could follow the model of the Mission Market, collecting data first and then gradually setting prices," Evil Eye suggested at this moment.

The Di Nian Evil Spirit, quickly devising a plan in its mind.

It's okay to suffer losses in the early stages, but you must figure out the true value of this "product" in the players' minds.

"In this way, we will create a Origin Source Display Area in the Mission Market, showcasing the Origin Source captured by our Alliance brothers in a prominent position, and then make it available for purchase by all players. However, the purchase can only be made through bidding, and players must pay resource rewards to participate in the auction."

"By engaging in cutthroat competition among themselves, these players gather valuable information, paving the way for standardized pricing in the future."

Before he could finish speaking, the Di Nian Evil Spirit couldn't help but frown.

wrong.

Although the player community is not always a monolithic group, they have always been aligned on external interests.

Data collected through bidding is not necessarily accurate; players have their own special communication channels, and he has witnessed this more than once.

The auction system is easily manipulated by players through internal communication channels to deliberately drive down prices.

Having thought of this, it felt unwilling to accept it.

Bidding is likely to be exploited by players, but if we abandon bidding, what methods can we use to get these stingy players to willingly part with more resources, bypassing their coordinated schemes while still reaping real benefits?

As his thoughts raced, an idea gradually became clear in the mind of the Di Nian Evil Spirit.