Ed's plan went very smoothly, so smoothly that even he felt a little pleased with himself.
In truth, it wasn't all his doing. Ed's guidance, the leaves Little Green had incorporated into the four bodies, and four players with some experience had together made the opening of this test's beginner quest look quite simple.
The most important part was the leaves Little Green had placed inside the four of them. Not only could they form basic stat displays at the edges of the players' vision, they could also track their locations in real time and relay them to Ed.
All he could say was that while this sapling wasn't very proactive, some thoughtful consideration could still yield some pretty useful functions.
The castle doors opened, and the four admired the magnificent scenery of the game while looking down at the ground more than ten meters below.
"We'll die, right? No matter how you look at it, jumping down from here will kill us, right?"
[Good Times Don't Last] seemed to have something of a fear of heights in real life too. Looking at the ground more than ten meters below, he couldn't help feeling his legs go slightly weak.
[Zhongde]: "I have an idea."
[Howling Pothos]: "What?"
[Zhongde]: "Everyone, check your stat panels. Constitution should have the biggest effect on how tough our bodies are. For the team, I suggest whoever has the highest constitution jump down and give it a try."
[Do Some Farm Work]: "I should've known someone with that username would be up to no good. Got any ideas that don't cost you so much karmic virtue?"
[Zhongde]: "Nope, brother, nope. What's a little karmic virtue? As long as it doesn't hurt Zhongde. My base stats are [Strength: 5, Agility: 5, Constitution: 5, Willpower: 5]. What about you?"
[Do Some Farm Work]: "Holy quadrilateral warrior. Mine are [Strength: 6, Agility: 4, Constitution: 4, Willpower: 6]."
[Howling Pothos]: "[Strength: 4, Agility: 7, Constitution: 3, Willpower: 6]. We're all level 0, so that confirms our starting stats total 20 points."
The player [Zhongde] looked a little awkward. He had thought his four evenly matched stats would surely put him somewhere around average, but now it seemed he was going to be the one sticking his neck out.
He was actually a little afraid of heights too.
[Zhongde] turned to [Good Times Don't Last] with a pleading look. The newbie player's eyes went unfocused as he glanced at his panel and said, "[Strength: 8, Agility: 7, Constitution: 2, Willpower: 3]."
That settled it. The person who proposed the plan had become the person who would carry it out. Karma had arrived.
[Zhongde] glared resentfully at [Good Times Don't Last] and complained in a somewhat despairing tone:
"8 strength and 2 constitution? Have you been shooting steroids? Your head looks kind of pointy."
But nobody paid [Zhongde] any attention. Standing at the castle entrance, he looked back to find the three waving goodbye to him with wicked grins.
[Zhongde] made an internationally recognized gesture of friendship, then leaned backward and fell.
He wasn't actually all that opposed to an attempt like this. After all, although he was a little afraid of heights, as long as he kept reminding himself that this wasn't the real world, he wasn't particularly scared.
He was more worried that something close to free fall would forcibly disconnect him from the game, leaving him opening his eyes to his dorm room ceiling again. That would be truly rotten luck. Other games all worked that way, after all.
But his worry didn't become reality. Or rather, the free fall the four players had imagined never happened.
After falling less than two meters, [Zhongde] felt a strange force pushing him from the left.
It was an extremely peculiar sensation. Rather than pushing against a single point or surface on his body, it pulled on his entire body, as though... the direction of gravity had changed.
A second later, while [Zhongde] was still dwelling on that sensation, his head struck a stone step. Even the footprints Ed had left earlier were still on it.
Before he could react, gravity changed direction again, and [Zhongde]'s body drew closer and closer to another stone step.
After several muffled grunts and screams, Zhongde tumbled all the way to the castle's remaining steps at ground level. He shook his head, then looked up at the three above with a resentful gaze, as though both blaming them and urging them to hurry up.
But the anomaly just now had clearly left the three players above deep in thought.
[Howling Pothos]: "I remember the NPC saying at the start that the rules of this world are in chaos. This should be one manifestation of that."
[Do Some Farm Work]: "Say something useful."
[Good Times Don't Last]: "I have an idea!"
The newbie player wanted to describe his guess, but felt it was so far removed from real life that it was difficult to put into words accurately.
So he simply stepped out through the doors, letting those strange gravitational forces tug him along while keeping his body in the posture of someone walking down steps.
The next moment, he stepped onto the stone step that had been touched by Ed's feet and [Zhongde]'s face.
[Good Times Don't Last] repeated the process and soon landed on the ground as lightly as a little animal, leaving [Zhongde], whose face was slightly swollen, utterly speechless.
A smug look appeared on the newbie's face, and he shouted up:
"Ignore those force fields. Just walk down the steps normally."
The remaining two soon understood as well, spinning through the air as they descended and landed beside [Zhongde].
Behind them, the guide NPC carrying a sack also landed with considerable grace.
After watching it three times, [Zhongde] finally understood the problem:
"So, basically, I just leaned straight backward on the stairs? Walking normally wouldn't have caused any problems at all?"
[Howling Pothos]: "Seems that way."
[Zhongde]: "That NPC should know how this works, right? Why didn't he tell us?"
The question seemed to briefly root all four in place. Then [Good Times Don't Last] boldly approached Ed and asked him about it. Sure enough, he received a friendly reminder about the chaotic force fields, along with advice on how to "go downstairs."
"You really did know? Then why didn't you tell us?"
[Good Times Don't Last] seemed to have forgotten he was inside a game, treating Ed entirely as a living, breathing human being.
The white-haired NPC before him stood frozen in place for several seconds as though he had crashed, before finally answering in an extremely bot-like manner:
"You didn't ask."
Disguised as an NPC, Ed looked at the four somewhat frustrated players before him and chuckled inwardly.
Sure enough, he couldn't act too intelligent. On the one hand, he needed to pretend to be a bot at times like this to keep these players from setting their expectations of him too high. On the other, he needed to show what made him different where the players least expected it, such as the opening cinematic.
The former was no different from the vast majority of games. The latter was his true trump card for leaving a lasting impression on the players.