NPCs farming players?

The White Light faded, revealing Cao Hong's dark expression.

Remembering how he had just been hacked to death, he ground his teeth in fury.

He couldn't help checking his stats.

What he saw made his expression even uglier.

"Motherfucker!"

No matter how well-mannered he was, he couldn't hold back the curse.

The large "Martial Entry, stage 0" displayed under his cultivation realm was painfully glaring.

One death meant losing one cultivation stage.

For the first time, Cao Hong felt the sting of such a loss.

Before he could stew in his anger for long, flashes of White Light began appearing around him.

"Fuck those damned Liangshan bandits!"

"Fuck you!"

All around him, players were cursing.

"I spent every day chasing chickens and ducks, and I was finally about to reach the first stage of Martial Entry, only to get reset to zero! I'm done with this shitty game!"

One player's face was full of grief and indignation.

The other players looked at him sympathetically.

Just then, Cao Hong also noticed the system message still in his log.

You were killed by a Bandit from the Liangshan Stronghold!

The Liangshan Stronghold!

Bandits!

Putting that together with what the other players had said, Cao Hong immediately understood.

He wasn't the only one who had been killed. The other players had all suffered the same fate.

"Looks like we were all killed by Bandits from the Liangshan Stronghold. We can't just let this slide. Since when do we players let NPCs walk all over us?"

"Let's team up and wipe out every last one of those Liangshan Stronghold Bandits!"

A player immediately made the suggestion.

His words instantly drew agreement from the others.

Anyone would have been furious if this had happened to them.

The experience points they had painstakingly accumulated had all been wiped out with a single respawn. A day or two of effort had gone to waste, and no player could accept that.

Even Cao Hong was simmering with anger.

But just as he was about to take out his weapon, he discovered something else that pissed him off.

His weapon—

Was gone.

Simply put, an NPC had killed him and made him drop his loot.

"I'm no man if I don't avenge this. Just you wait!" Cao Hong gritted his teeth.

Seeing players already forming parties and heading out of the village, he followed them.

Players could respawn. That was their greatest advantage.

Their encounters with the Liangshan Bandits had shown that the enemies might have higher cultivation stages, but the players had numbers on their side.

Cao Hong believed that with enough players, they could overwhelm those Bandits through sheer numbers.

Elsewhere.

Watching his Life Source steadily increase, Qin Shujian smiled in satisfaction.

He couldn't deal with the Novice Village yet.

But that didn't mean he had no way to curb the players' growth.

Most players hadn't even reached the first stage of Martial Entry yet, making them considerably weaker than the bandits of the Liangshan Stronghold.

Besides, although these Bandits weren't very intelligent, they had still experienced bloody fighting. That gave them an advantage over those newbie players.

And since the Bandits could respawn, Qin Shujian wasn't afraid of losing them to attrition.

Finally, Zheng Fang and the others had joined at just the right time, greatly boosting the Liangshan Stronghold's strength.

So Qin Shujian had simply sent out the vast majority of his bandits to form a loose encirclement around Starter Village No. 10021 and kill every player they encountered.

"I'd like to see what these players can accomplish with all of them trapped inside the Novice Village."

A cold smile curled Qin Shujian's lips.

The players' strength lay in their ability to level up by killing monsters and respawn endlessly.

But—

If they lost the option to kill monsters and level up, leaving only their endless respawns, they would be nothing more than an inexhaustible ATM.

He was now going to take the monster-killing, level-grinding route himself.

There was just one difference.

He was farming players as monsters.

Sun Xiao'er, a bandit of the Liangshan Stronghold, has advanced to the second stage of Martial Entry after killing numerous Outlanders!

The sudden system message left Qin Shujian stunned.

Then delight swept over him.

"Leveling up! The other Bandits can level up by killing players too!"

The discovery truly shocked Qin Shujian, and thrilled him as well.

He had always thought the other Bandits could only grow stronger through methodical cultivation, improving one step at a time.

But now, everything was different.

The other Bandits could also level up by killing players!

That meant the Bandits of the Liangshan Stronghold had the potential to grow rapidly.

Previously, Qin Shujian had worried that his strength was increasing too quickly for the Liangshan Stronghold's Bandits to keep pace.

Now, that concern had completely vanished.

Being able to farm players for levels was enough.

Rubbing his chin, Qin Shujian murmured to himself, "I originally wanted to get stronger quickly, then storm Starter Village No. 10021 and eliminate the threat posed by its players once and for all.

"But now that the Liangshan Stronghold's Bandits can farm players for levels, there's no need to rush into conquering it."

Keeping it around to farm continuously was far better than cashing in just once.

Of course, while some Bandits leveled up, others died.

As the stronghold chief, Qin Shujian could keep track of everything happening to his Bandits.

Whether someone advanced a cultivation stage or died, he received a system notification.

Bandits killed by players needed three days to respawn.

As long as the Liangshan Stronghold wasn't conquered, these bandits could keep respawning. But if it fell, they would never respawn again.

Tiedan, a bandit of the Liangshan Stronghold, has advanced to the second stage of Martial Entry after killing numerous Outlanders!

Wu Goudan, a Bandit of the Liangshan Stronghold, has died!

A Bandit of the Liangshan Stronghold...

A few system messages popped up from time to time, showing how fiercely the bandits and players were fighting.

Just then—

Several players approached from the distance.

Qin Shujian spotted them just as they spotted him.

For a moment, both sides stared at each other.

But after only two seconds, one of the players shouted, "It's the Liangshan Stronghold chief! Run!"

The other players reacted as well.

A day earlier, when Qin Shujian had fought the village's expert NPCs at the entrance to the Novice Village, they had all been among the players watching.

They had a rough idea of how powerful Qin Shujian was.

He was absolutely not someone they could stand against.

Players could respawn, true, but none of them wanted to suffer the pain of death for no reason, especially such a meaningless death.

So the moment they saw Qin Shujian, they turned and ran.

Trying to leave?

Qin Shujian tapped the ground with his toes, and his body shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

He lashed out with a flying kick, sending a sharp crack through the air.

The player bringing up the rear didn't even have time to turn around before the kick struck him square in the back, turning him into a streak of white light that dissipated.

The loud impact made the other players instinctively look back.

They caught sight of Qin Shujian kicking a player to death, and terror seized them all.

"Fuck!"