Stinking Outsiders! Coming to Jade Capital to Beg!

He Yan silently closed the communication panel.

He didn't send the message.

But at this very moment, there are still countless players in the Astera who are in a state of high excitement.

They don't contemplate life like He Yan does.

Almost immediately after the NPC at the Smithy announced the news, the Nine Provinces Forum posted it simultaneously.

[Stop looking at your B-grade katana! The Astera has really appeared in reality, and it's not just an empty shell. We were all wrong yesterday. There are NPCs inside, even dungeon NPCs! Lu Xiu is still the commander of the real- Astera! Most importantly, you can actually farm equipment in the workshop area inside! [Screenshot] Yes, that's exactly the kind of equipment!]

[----What do you mean the Astera has actually appeared in reality? What do you mean Lu Xiu is the commander? Are you still in the dungeon and haven't logged out yet?]

[OP, are you alright? Did you sit in the Felyne Cart too much while playing Monster Hunter last night and start hallucinating?]

[Hilarious! Why don't you just say Lu Xiu directly summoned Nergigante? Stop spreading rumors! We know your equipment is awesome.]

[Using materials from frontline monsters to make S-grade equipment? Why don't you mention that Crawler tongues can be used to make bowstrings?]

At the beginning.

The impactful, even outrageous, title instantly attracted countless players who were slacking off or had just quit a dungeon.

However, when netizens clicked on the post and saw the details, their first reaction was not shock, but rather bewilderment and speechlessness.

Of course, there were also doubts and ridicule.

After all, this sounds absurd and completely defies common sense. It's one thing for a dungeon scene to appear in reality, but to have NPCs inside help you craft equipment sounds ridiculous.

Besides, there's no shortage of idiots in any world.

Since the live broadcast of the arena battles.

Every day, there's a ton of random and confusing news about Lu Xiu.

However, very few of these reports are actually true. Aside from the video that showed Lu Xiu's face being blurred yesterday, players generally question other news about Lu Xiu.

So the players will be the same.

But soon, as players at the Astera began uploading videos and panoramic photos, the doubts on the forums came to an abrupt end.

In the video, the background is clearly the modern city of Jade Capital at first, but as the player recording the video moves forward, the familiar Astera from the Monster Hunter dungeon appears before their eyes.

And there are some familiar NPCs in it.

The second half of the video.

The foreman of the Smithy, whom players are very familiar with in the dungeon, is standing at the door shouting, "Commander Lu Xiu said, bring me monster materials, and I can make equipment like this!"

As is widely known.

Videos cannot be faked.

So this is true.

All right.

The main problem is that nobody's that bored as to do something like this to scam people.

So when the evidence is presented...

The players who had been mocking them immediately fell silent.

And about a few seconds later.

Question marks started popping up everywhere.

[???]

[Holy crap?! Isn't that the Smithy leader? If he's in reality, then who was that guy I encountered in the dungeon? A ghost?]

[Wait, my CPU burned out! Someone wake me up! Is this for real?!]

[NPCs have really appeared?! This is impossible! Can Architect really do this?! I heard Architect have levels, could this be a level-based gameplay feature? Why can't the Construction Club do this?]

[How dare those bastards in the Construction Club compare to my wife?]

Have you no shame?

[What are you guys talking about! The important thing is what that NPC said, brothers! Fighting monsters on the front lines can get you S-grade equipment! And rare ranged weapons at that! Do you know what that means?]

[I know, we've already started packing to go to Jade Capital, haven't we? We're even planning to put the dungeons on hold for now.]

[Jade Capital! Jade Capital!!!]

[----]

After the players confirmed that it was real.

moment.

Everyone got excited.

I can't beat the Monster Hunter dungeon.

Am I not even able to defeat the monsters on the front lines?

Are you kidding me!

Countless players stood up and immediately prepared to set off.

Let's go to Jade Capital!

Fortunately, there's an entrance to an offline Monster Hunter dungeon in Jade Capital.

Meanwhile, players from other regions had been secretly observing the Nine Provinces forums, especially after yesterday's katana tutorial—many players from other regions were hoping to see tutorials for Lu Xiu's other weapons today.

But I didn't expect to see anything else in the weapon tutorials—I saw something even more exciting.

It's amazing that they brought the Astera from the game to reality!

Why hasn't the mission been formed yet?

Franca.

Princess Rosalind glanced at the forum, where Franca players were posting everywhere about their plans to go to Nine Provinces, then looked up at the Guard in front of her and asked a question.

The Guard understood why the Her Royal Highness the Princess was in such a hurry and quickly replied, "This is mainly because His Majesty wants to balance the various forces within the country. The nobles all want to go to Nine Provinces to take a look—and with this incident, it's estimated that even more nobles will want to go to Nine Provinces. The negotiations will probably take quite some time."

"These bastards!"

Rosalind was somewhat annoyed by this. "By the time they finish their negotiations, it will be too late!"

"Your Her Royal Highness the Princess ----"

After a moment of silence, the Guard couldn't help but say, "The post says the weapon's materials come from monsters in Nine Provinces, right? Do we need to be in such a hurry? Although the weapon is powerful, according to intelligence, the monsters in the two regions seem to be different, don't they? We can't exactly help Nine Provinces defend the front lines, can we?"

Rosalind: "Why not?"

Guard:

"----"

"Their strategy for defending against the monsters on the main stage is different from ours. They have a larger area to live in and need more manpower. If they provide weapons, we can indeed help with the defense."

Rosalind said, "Look at those insects, they argue about choosing an envoy—it would be better to send them to Nine Provinces to help others defend and earn some weapons."

Although it's highly likely that Nine Provinces won't agree----

However, if this happens in a real-world Astera just like in the instance, then the weapons could potentially be mass-produced. Do you know what that means? Nine Provinces might be able to export them! Export weapons! Do you understand? Even if it's not possible right now, it definitely will be in the future! So the most important thing right now is the mission!! You and Emperor Father —never mind, I'll go find him myself."

Rosalind got up and walked out.

She knew very well that the sooner she made contact with Nine Provinces, the greater her advantage would be.

After all, the country had been separated for four years.

Nine Provinces felt obligated to show some respect to its first visiting guest.

But it's uncertain for those who go later.

There are too many people.

They might mistake us for beggars.

Franca realized this, as did Canaan and other places, and they all began to accelerate the process of sending missions to Nine Provinces.

but.

If I had to say what touched me the most upon seeing this news...

It has to be Construction Club from Nine Provinces.

After all, there aren't such abnormal Construction Club in other areas.

This was caused by the unique environment of Nine Provinces —a two-year period of disorder allowed large guilds and fraudulent Construction Club to grow almost simultaneously, with one side absorbing High Sequence players and the other absorbing Architect, but order was rebuilt two years later.

This resulted in a complete stalemate between the two sides.

This, coupled with Lu Xiu's sudden emergence and the fact that the special event initially attracted all the invading players from Prison Rock, are factors influencing this situation.

The Architect Association in Nine Provinces is in a situation that is unique among all the countries.

It's that familiar Bell Tower again.

The same six familiar, indistinct-faced people sat around the long table.

Just this once.

They were truly speechless, staring at the forum posts for a long time without uttering a word.

A very, very long time later.

The leader of the Spirit Pivot Construction Group murmured, "So this is the true effect of the Placement Function —I thought the Placement Function's claim of mutations was probabilistic. Each time we placed an entrance, only one appeared; we were just unlucky."

The forest that appeared in Chen Capital earlier must have been caused by Lu Xiu setting up a dungeon, right? It turns out that a well-constructed dungeon can cause an anomaly with every use!

Others heard this.

He lowered his head even further.

Extremely frustrated.

And of course, there's fear.

Their Placement Function could only create a mediocre offline entrance to the dungeon, and it was tiny. But Lu Xiu's placement directly brought the NPC base in the dungeon to life.

What about the Hall Function that unlocks after the Architect reaches level 15?

How terrifying must Lu Xiu be to use?

"In the previous arena battle, we wanted to try and compete with Lu Xiu, hoping to use the dungeon more times than her."

The leader of the Spirit Pivot Construction Group continued, "But even though her dungeons are constantly banned by players from Prison Rock, her dungeon usage count is still far ahead. She even created an SSS-rated dungeon during the arena battle; we simply can't compete—"

Everyone fell silent again.

Can you tell us something that nobody knows?

At this moment.

The only female leader of the Construction Club present finally couldn't hold back any longer and said impatiently, "We already know all this! So what exactly are you trying to say?"

The leader of the Spirit Pivot Construction Group remained silent for a long while, then said, "I'm thinking—should we just give up? Let's go directly to Lu Xiu and have her teach us Constructed Instance."

Others:

At the same time.

"It seems the arrival of the players won't upset the NPCs—at most, it'll just make them impatient."

Yan Fushou stood on the third floor of the Astera, looking at the grand scene below, and muttered to himself.

--

actually.

The opening of the Astera this time is also to test whether the NPCs in the Astera will be like the Witch NPCs—if Lu Xiu is not restrained, she will directly attack players, etc.

The soldiers had already tested it, and it was safe.

But soldiers aren't silly gamers.

At this moment, on the third floor of the Astera.

Besides Li Shengkai and Yan Fushou, who arrived early in the morning via Bonfire from Chen Capital, Zhou Zhenyue and Chu Huai, the two commanders from the Jade Capital front, were also present.

Of course, Lu Xiu was also there.

As for Shen Nian and Jian Li, they have once again devoted themselves to the great cause of massaging the Nergigante.

That is precisely why.

The entire Astera has been cordoned off on all three levels and is temporarily closed to ordinary players.

"So, Miss Lu, does this mean that as long as players don't initiate an attack, the NPCs in the Astera pose basically no threat to them?"

Zhou Zhenyue looked at the NPCs on the first floor who, although impatient, did not attack the players, and turned to Lu Xiu to confirm.

"Well, so far, all the NPCs here are of the lawful faction. As long as players don't attack them first, they won't do anything. However, we still need to prevent players from frequently harassing the NPCs."

Lu Xiu nodded. "Let's get back to what we were doing. We don't need to stay here anymore. I'm also preparing to go to the front lines."

Upon hearing this,

Yan Fushou suddenly turned his head.

Zhou Zhenyue and Chu Huai also turned around in unison.

"You're going to the front lines again?!"

Chu Huai was somewhat taken aback. "The Astera has already attracted so High Sequence players, the defensive pressure on the front lines will probably ease significantly soon. There's absolutely no need for you to go to such a dangerous place again—"

"That's precisely why I'm going."

Lu Xiu looked down and said, "I have a feeling that the front lines will be very lively soon, and there might even be a situation where there are too many wolves and not enough meat. I want to take advantage of the fact that there are still enough monsters to kill a few more Variant Monster. After that, I probably won't go anymore."

Zhou Zhenyue and the others looked at each other in bewilderment.

"It's not just that I want to play it myself; the main reason is that I feel the fact that you can use real-world materials to craft equipment offline might create a sense of disillusionment for players who are still struggling to clear dungeons."

Lu Xiu straightened the blue ribbon at the back of her head. "So I plan to go to the front lines again to collect some materials, and see if I can combine the rare materials dropped in the dungeon with the materials from the Variant Monster on the front lines in reality to make another special piece of equipment. It'll be an experiment, I guess."

Upon hearing this reason, the group fell silent again.

It's absolutely impossible to refuse.

After a while.

Zhou Zhenyue nodded with a complicated expression. "In that case, please be careful. Or should I make some arrangements?"

Lu Xiu waved her hand. "No need, I'm used to doing things alone."

As it turns out...

Lu Xiu's prediction was indeed correct.

The Astera appeared in reality on the third day.

A large number of High Sequence players rushed to Jade Capital.

--

These are just players from surrounding cities, but the number has already far exceeded the Coordination Bureau's initial estimates.

Entrance reception area.

The staff officers responsible for assigning defense zones had their hands practically blurring out of Afterimage on the virtual keyboards.

"You! Go to A09 Defense Zone!"

"You, B32 Defense Zone!"

"The five of you together? Let's go to C33!"

Countless players with shining eyes.

Upon entering Jade Capital, they were deployed to various defense zones on the front lines like a net being cast.

The problem is, the players who were assigned to the game were overjoyed.

And so High Sequence players have voluntarily come to the front lines.

It completely changed the atmosphere on the front lines.

Those ordinary soldiers who had once struggled against the Monster Tide and were on the verge of their lines collapsing at any moment now stood bewildered, clutching their guns and questioning the meaning of life.

Because all the High Sequence players were ahead of them, more proactive than anyone else.

In fact, due to limited space, the Monster Tide didn't arrive.

Many players have already started arguing about it.

What was originally a brutal and bloody frontline meat grinder has been transformed into a vegetable market by the players.

"Holy crap, can you move aside?!"

Who are you? Why are you standing so close to me?

Do you know where I'm from?

"I'm a native of Jade Capital! This is my hometown!"

A09 Defense Zone.

A High Sequence player angrily grabbed a player who had just arrived from out of town by the collar and yelled, "You stinking out-of-towner! You come all the way to Jade Capital to beg for food, fine?! But you dare steal my spot?!"