Mind Reading, Hidden Mechanics, the Affection System

Looking at the tasks Mother Goddess had assigned, Skadi felt deeply troubled. How was she supposed to distribute them?

Just then, Skadi suddenly felt countless gazes focused on her. Following those gazes, she curiously looked up and found the Travelers staring at her as if they were inspecting an item.

And while Skadi was still completely unaware of what was happening—

In the vision of countless players, a question mark suddenly appeared above the High Elf Skadi's head.

Anyone who often played games knew what this meant: there was a quest available.

As the Travelers' looks toward her grew stranger and stranger, voices from the crowd reached Skadi's ears.

"Did you get the system notification?"

"I got it too. The system said to collect a quest from High Elf Skadi."

"Then hurry up! I want to finish it early, level up early, and complete my class change. I picked Mage, after all."

Watching the Travelers swarm toward her, Skadi finally belatedly realized that Mother Goddess had probably given them some kind of order.

Faced with such frenzied Travelers, Skadi swallowed before gathering her courage and stepping forward. "Does anyone want to accept a quest?"

"Me, me, me!"

"Miss Elf, I want one too!"

A huge crowd gathered around Skadi, raising their hands.

Skadi: "..."

Watching the Travelers suddenly turn into bootlickers and eagerly accept menial chores—

Skadi could only think silently, Perhaps Mother Goddess was right. There really is something wrong with their minds.

In Skadi's eyes, Mother Goddess had assigned only a few types of tasks:

[Collect Wood]

[Clean the Camp]

[Gather Food]

[Drive Away Wild Beasts]

To Skadi, these were all laborious chores. What she had not expected was for the Travelers to accept them so enthusiastically.

After accepting her quest and squeezing out of the crowd, Qi Lin shook her head. "I never thought even accepting a quest at the start would require fighting through a crowd. This really is realistic."

As she spoke, Qi Lin opened the quest she had just received from Skadi.

[Random Daily Quest: Gather Food. Collect 50 random fruits or vegetables. Progress: 0/50. Reward: 10–300 EXP.]

So it was gathering food. After reading the quest, Qi Lin opened the minimap function in the system.

With the minimap's help, Qi Lin could clearly see that everything within ten kilometers of the player spawn point was a safe zone. Beyond ten kilometers, there was a certain degree of danger.

Not far from the spawn point was a small orchard.

Following the map's directions, Qi Lin headed for that orchard.

The moment she stepped into the orchard, Qi Lin smelled a unique woody fragrance drifting through the air. Even the sunlight scattered through the leaves felt utterly real.

From time to time, small animals darted between the fruit trees, clutching unknown fruits as they plunged into the grass.

Combined with the exclusive ambient music playing beside Qi Lin's ears—

The whole place perfectly captured the atmosphere of a primeval forest.

As Qi Lin searched the orchard for fruit, she spotted fruits growing on several trees that looked very much like figs, though they were somewhat different from real-world figs.

Fortunately, game characters came with the Appraisal Technique. Qi Lin used it on the fig-like fruit.

In the next moment, information about the fruit appeared before Qi Lin.

[Name: Sunset Fruit.]

[Description: A gift of nature, commonly found throughout the Seven Nations. A plump, beautiful fruit as brilliant as the setting sun. Its strange sweet fragrance can invigorate the spirit.]

[Effect: Restores a small amount of vitality after consumption.]

After reading the Sunset Fruit's description, Qi Lin curiously picked one from the tree, wiped it with her hand, and took a bite. Crunch.

"Mmm!" Qi Lin's eyes lit up at once. The very first bite filled her mouth with an unusual fruity fragrance, a flavor she had never tasted in reality.

Crunch, crunch. After several bites, Qi Lin finished the Sunset Fruit in her hand.

After eating it, Qi Lin noticed a green cross icon appear on the character panel for her game character, [Tianhe Sheriff].

Unfortunately, Qi Lin was not injured right now. Otherwise, she could have experienced the Sunset Fruit's restorative effect.

Qi Lin looked at the fruit throughout the orchard, suppressed her cravings, and began working on the quest.

She was about to finish gathering fifty Sunset Fruits, but how was she supposed to carry them back?

Looking at the vines climbing the fruit trees around her, Qi Lin had a flash of inspiration. She removed several sections and wove them into a simple vine basket.

A while later, Qi Lin looked at her handiwork with satisfaction, nodded, slung the vine basket over her back, and returned to the Player Camp.

On her way back, Qi Lin spotted a strawberry-like fruit growing in the bushes.

Without hesitation, Qi Lin threw an Appraisal Technique at it.

[Name: Raspberry.]

[Description: A brightly colored fruit. A small joy scattered throughout the wilderness, capable of washing away the fatigue of travel.]

[Effect: Relieves hunger. Note: Perhaps it has other uses.]

Seeing the information given by the Appraisal Technique, Qi Lin's face darkened. These days, even game systems knew how to make snide remarks.

"Forget it. I'll bring these back for Skadi to take a look at too." After thinking it over, Qi Lin picked all the raspberries from the bushes and returned to the gathering area.

The moment she entered the Player Camp, the game music by Qi Lin's ears switched back to a cheerful tune.

Qi Lin also discovered that while she had been out gathering food, the other players had already cleaned the camp and used the wood they had chopped earlier to build wooden huts.

The quest hand-in area was located in the center of the Player Camp. According to Cheng Jue's estimate, it would eventually become a large plaza. It was currently used for handing in quests, and later could also serve as a trading area between players.

When Qi Lin arrived at the central plaza, she found that other players were gradually returning to hand in their quests as well.

At that moment, Skadi was surrounded by players and busier than ever, though she seemed to be in a very good mood.

Qi Lin felt that Skadi was nothing like an NPC. She seemed more like a real person. Sometimes, Qi Lin even suspected she was a staff member in disguise.

Perhaps the game developers had installed an independent intelligent AI into the NPCs. That was possible too.

But just as Qi Lin was about to step forward and submit her quest, she noticed that whenever a player grinned at Skadi in a frivolous manner, Skadi's attitude instantly became extremely cold.

"Could this be a hidden Affection System?" Qi Lin sensed something. It had to be. The Affection System was such a basic feature that the developers could not possibly have left it out. Perhaps it was even the key to unlocking some follow-up quests.

After realizing that Skadi treated everyone differently, Qi Lin stood to the side rather than stepping forward to hand in her quest.

Instead, she carefully observed Skadi's attitude after every interaction with different players. Interestingly, whenever Skadi noticed Qi Lin watching her, she would awkwardly turn her head away. Qi Lin dared to swear that she had never seen an NPC with such vivid expressions.

After observing for a while, Qi Lin noticed that Skadi was fairly friendly toward female players, but when facing male players, her attitude became exceptionally cold.

After thinking carefully, Qi Lin understood. At the beginning, the shameless players who had flirted with Skadi had all been male, so they had left her with an awful impression.

Qi Lin observed every movement Skadi made while communicating with each player.

Suddenly, an idea came to Qi Lin...

She stepped forward. Skadi noticed the female Elf approaching her. In truth, Skadi had been watching her for quite some time too, wondering what this female Elf had been doing while standing nearby and watching her.

"Have you completed your quest? Are you here to submit it?"

Qi Lin came before Skadi, stood straight, and gave her an unfamiliar Elf greeting. Qi Lin had seen Skadi do the same thing from the side and had copied it quite convincingly.

Qi Lin spoke in an equal tone. "Yes, I have completed the quest and am here to submit it."

"Mm." Skadi felt that the Elf before her was completely different. In Qi Lin's eyes, Skadi seemed more like a companion, so Skadi nodded and said,

"Then let me see what you gathered."

Qi Lin did as she was told and set down the vine basket on her back.

Skadi stepped forward to inspect it, then nodded in satisfaction. "These are Sunset Fruits. At your current levels, they can also serve as healing potions."

As she spoke, Skadi said to Qi Lin, "You completed your quest very well. This is your reward."

The moment Skadi finished speaking, Qi Lin saw the quest section of the system display that it had been completed.

Along with the system notification, Qi Lin saw that 300 EXP had been added to her panel. In an instant, her character leveled up twice in a row and reached level three.

Sure enough, there really is a hidden affection mechanic, Qi Lin thought.

As her character level rose, Qi Lin could clearly feel her physical strength increasing significantly.

The improvement was so obvious and so real that it felt as if she had truly gained power.

Skadi looked at her thoughtfully. In Skadi's eyes, Qi Lin's level-up emitted obvious fluctuations of the Life Principle. It resembled the feeling of an Elf being born, only much weaker.

To Skadi, this had to be Mother Goddess's work. What Skadi could not understand was why Mother Goddess would create such a huge commotion just to strengthen such a weak existence.

That was right. When Qi Lin leveled up, the visual and sound effects were practically maxed out.

Qi Lin's level-up also attracted many envious looks.

Just as Skadi was about to return to her position, Qi Lin hurriedly stopped her. "Miss Skadi, how should this be handled?"

As she spoke, Qi Lin took out the raspberries she had picked on the way back and showed them to Skadi.

"These are raspberries. It would be a pity to use them only to fill your stomach." Clearly, Skadi had not finished what she wanted to say.

Qi Lin immediately responded sincerely, "Please teach me."

Seeing how polite she was, Skadi suggested, "I recommend finding a Traveler whose profession is Sumeru scholar apprentice. She has a better way to handle raspberries."

Skadi pointed in a direction, indicating where Qi Lin should look.

"Oh my god, what kind of move is this? An NPC is introducing a player to another player." Qi Lin was completely stunned.

"Oh, and next time, you can also ask a scholar about food. Or after reaching level ten, learn cooking yourself. That would be even better." Skadi's sudden reminder left Qi Lin somewhat at a loss.

Out of politeness, Qi Lin could only nod to Skadi and walk in the direction Skadi had indicated.

After this incident, Qi Lin had formed some guesses about the NPC system in World Tree.

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