[Ji Luo] turned red in the face under the barrage of mockery.
He could hardly announce that he was actually very young and had been playing on his older sister's account all along, could he?
"Piss off, all of you! Cut the crap! This is how I look in real life-forever eighteen!"
[Ji Luo] rolled his eyes and forcibly changed the subject. "Anyway, where's Jiahao? It's already ten past seven. Why isn't he online yet?"
At the mention of that name, the other three looked around. Sure enough, that aloof figure trying to stick his hands into the pockets of his oversized boxers was nowhere to be seen.
"Did he oversleep?" Bossy Guy asked in confusion.
"Oh, please. Oversleep, my ass."
[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] sneered, his face full of disdain, as though possessed by a Famous Detective.
"With the way he was acting in-game yesterday..."
[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] paused, then delivered his verdict with absolute conviction. "That guy's definitely a middle schooler in real life. Hell, he might even be an elementary school kid who just started summer vacation!"
Ma Lou slapped his thigh in realization. "Exactly! That vibe was so thoroughly marinated in edgy delusions that you couldn't fake it without at least a third grader's level of mastery!"
[Ji Luo] grinned and played along. "Then why isn't he online now? Is he doing his summer homework?"
"Homework, my ass."
Ma Lou chuckled. "My guess is that our young master Jiahao, who's seen through Wall Street's underlying logic, is currently being dragged by the ear by his mom and whipped with a Septwolves belt on his way to Little Genius's summer math Olympiad prep class!"
"Hahahahaha!"
The church erupted in gleeful laughter.
The four grown men mocked their absent teammate to their hearts' content in the empty, dilapidated shrine. For a while, the atmosphere was wonderfully harmonious.
While the four were engrossed in their conversation.
Sivir, the young native nun who had been hiding in a corner of the ruins all along, stared through her fingers at the four believers who had descended once again, her eyes filled with the reverence of someone witnessing a divine miracle.
Her meager vocabulary could no longer describe the shock she felt.
Yesterday, these walking calamities had all been completely hairless, bald figures with identical faces.
Yet after just one night, the Deity had bestowed entirely different appearances upon them!
One had hair white as snow, another looked fierce and imposing, and some... well, some looked even more like villains than the cultists outside!
But this was clearly the supreme authority of the Creator!
Trembling all over with excitement, Sivir knelt before the broken statue on the altar again, pressing her forehead to the cold stone floor.
Meanwhile, Lin En, seated within the stone statue on the altar, watched the four bizarre players with their wildly different looks chatting up a storm below. Exasperated, he put a hand to his nonexistent forehead.
An alt-fashion berserker, a neighborhood committee uncle, an electric scooter thief, and a handsome pretty boy.
"I spent thirty faith points painstakingly setting up a dark, epic atmosphere for you, and you turned it into a psychiatric patient support group!"
Lin En ranted inwardly.
Still, of the five players in the first test, only four were online.
Where had [I'm Not Jiahao] gone-the guy who constantly spouted "underlying logic" and whom everyone was certain had gone to Little Genius's math Olympiad class?
Lin En casually opened the system's backend and took a look.
Good grief. He would have been better off not looking. One glance sent his blood pressure soaring.
The backend data showed that [I'm Not Jiahao] had actually logged in right on time at seven that morning.
He wasn't lagging or disconnected, either. He had spent a solid half hour and then some immersed in the "character customization system"!
Lin En stared at the screenshot synced over by the system and went completely blank.
The guy was zooming way in on his character's facial model, carefully adjusting the curl of his left eyelashes!
"For fuck's sake, do you think you're playing a dress-up game or running a cosmetic surgery clinic? The evil gods are practically at our doorstep, and you're over here sculpting eyelashes?"
Lin En couldn't be bothered to wait for this terminally delusional edgelord. If he waited any longer, it would be too late to do anything.
With a thought, he bundled up the "core economy design plan" he had stayed up grinding out the previous night and tossed it straight into the system's update package.
"Ding!"
A crisp system notification suddenly rang through the church, startling the four men mid-boast.
Immediately afterward, a translucent scroll glowing dark gold slowly unfurled right in the center of all four players' vision.
[Server-wide system announcement: A new journey has begun!] [The core economy system has been implemented and loaded!] [From now on, players will receive the game's basic currency, Ash Coins, for killing eldritch creatures in the wilderness or completing quests issued by NPCs.] [Additional hotfix notes: To ensure a good player experience, the "account ban after three deaths" mechanic has been removed. Each player currently has 1 free resurrection. Once this free resurrection has been used, each reconstruction of your body will cost 10 Ash Coins.] [Happy hunting, Ash Apostles!]
At the sight of the announcement, the entire church fell silent for a second, then erupted in cheers loud enough to blow the roof off!
"Holy shit!! Guys, stop chatting! Monsters drop money now! They added a currency system!!!"
[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] was so excited he nearly performed a backflip on the spot, his silver-white spikes bouncing. "I knew this game wouldn't be stupid enough to have permadeath!"
"Paying for your life-that's the true flavor of an online game!"
"Thank goodness! We finally don't have to live in fear of getting our accounts deleted!" Bossy Guy rubbed his hands together with an honest grin and let out a long sigh of relief.
Ma Lou's eyes positively shone, and he was practically drooling, like a miser who had just caught sight of the god of wealth.
"Money for killing monsters, money for doing quests... guys, I've got more drive than a work donkey right now! I'm gonna farm those monsters outside to extinction!"
Now that the workers' enthusiasm had been fully fired up, a competent capitalist had to hand out their KPIs.
Lin En controlled the stone statue, and its eyes once again lit up with an imposing blue glow.
Two new quest windows immediately popped up on the right side of the four players' vision:
[Daily quest 1: The Deity's Sanctuary] [Quest description: The great Lord of Ashes requires offerings from his believers, while poor young Sister Sivir does not even have a place to shelter from the wind and rain. Build her a simple wooden hut on the open ground outside the church.] [Quest rewards: EXP +20, 10 Ash Coins.] [Daily quest 2: Believer's Provisions] [Quest description: Sister Sivir has not eaten a full meal in two days, and the Deity cannot bear to watch her starve to death. Search the wilderness for any edible meat or wild fruit.] [Quest requirement: Submit edible supplies.] [Quest rewards: 2-5 Ash Coins per submission, depending on quality (repeatable).]
Now the four of them truly couldn't sit still.
Main quests, dailies, currency-now this was a proper, complete online game ecosystem!
"Guys, don't rush out just yet. We need to work out a plan."
Just as [Passing Pure-Love Warrior] was about to head out and find a monster to duel, [Ji Luo], sporting the face of a bright, cheerful honor student, stepped forward and held out a hand to stop everyone.
He pointed at the somewhat gloomy sky outside and analyzed the situation. "Anyone who's played survival or sandbox games should know one ironclad rule: daytime is always less dangerous than nighttime."
"This game is all about dark Cthulhu survival. Once it gets dark, all sorts of terrifying monsters with special mechanics are bound to spawn outside, and visibility will be severely limited too."
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