A newbie's stupidity was painful enough, but a veteran's vigilance was even harder to guard against

Hands brimming with vitality brushed over the two severed surfaces, and several roots and buds of flesh immediately sprouted from the flesh that had long since lost its vitality.

Ed hurriedly pressed the two surfaces together. After a few seconds, once he confirmed they had grown together, he continued working on the puzzle.

Clearly, players were immortal.

In principle, this was not actually difficult to understand.

The flesh making up these lively fellows came from Ed's hunting and plant cultivation, while their souls came from another world through the webway.

When their flesh suffered extensive damage, their souls would naturally return to their real bodies.

And all he needed to do was piece the player fragments back together to summon them again. That was perfectly reasonable.

At that moment, the three remaining players were gathered around Ed, observing the entire resurrection process.

Although they had not died, they still wanted to know what kind of resurrection mechanics this game would give its players.

Most likely, it would be an old-fashioned design like "a flash of white light, and the player revives on the spot," but considering how polished everything had been so far, perhaps the developers had something big up their sleeves?

Sure enough, the developers did not disappoint the three of them.

Watching Ed "stitching closely before departure," [Do Some Farm Work]'s mouth twitched:

"If we die, will we get pieced back together bit by bit like this too?"

[Zhongde]: "Looks like it."

[Howling Pothos]: "What if we die a more horrible death, though? Like getting burned to death, or eaten? There wouldn't be a body to find."

[Zhongde]: "No idea. Maybe different ways of dying mean different resurrection times... Want to try?"

[Howling Pothos] shook his head vigorously, while [Do Some Farm Work] beside him adopted an earnest expression:

"If I die, thanks in advance for collecting my hero fragments, everyone."

"Pfft. Hero fragments? Yours?"

[Zhongde] agreed with [Do Some Farm Work]'s point, but scorned his attempt to glorify himself.

The three watched as Ed pieced [Good Times Don't Last] back together bit by bit. It was not that they had nothing better to do; rather, after two attempts just now, defeating the Deadwood Vine with only three people still seemed somewhat difficult.

It would have been a different story if all three players had 8 strength, but unfortunately, they were not that lucky.

With no other choice, the three could only wait for their team's early-game main carry to revive.

Ed's puzzle game soon reached its final stage. Holding [Good Times Don't Last]'s head, he brushed over the severed surface as wide as the mouth of a bowl, then pressed it onto the severed neck of the body.

The soul webway reconnected, and Jing Ming from another world, or rather, [Good Times Don't Last], finally returned to his faithful "World of Disorder."

"Huff~ huff~"

[Good Times Don't Last] opened his eyes, feeling his in-game body again. Looking at the three player friends and one NPC around him, he wore a bewildered expression:

"Wh-why are you all looking at me?"

[Zhongde] stepped forward to help him up, pointing at the distant Deadwood Vine:

"This monster is incredibly tough. We absolutely can't do it without you."

"You want me to go feed again?"

[Good Times Don't Last]'s face was full of wariness.

"You really have me wrong this time."

[Zhongde] slung an arm around his shoulders:

"You have the highest strength, so of course you're our main attacker. As for the tank who draws aggro..."

[Zhongde]'s expression changed several times before he finally said reluctantly:

"I have the highest constitution. I'll do it."

[Good Times Don't Last] nodded and pressed, "Have you worked out a strategy, then?"

This time, [Howling Pothos] answered:

"After testing it a few times just now, I've more or less figured out its attack patterns. Its windups and recovery animations are both really obvious. Oh, have you guys played 'Starve'?"

"Yes." ×3

"That makes it easy. Just treat it like fighting a treeguard. Three hits, then dodge once should work fine. With someone drawing its attacks, everyone else should be able to do four hits, then dodge once."

[Good Times Don't Last] ran through the strategy in his mind and felt there was nothing wrong with it.

But to be safe, after getting the other three's agreement, he still turned back to Ed and tentatively asked his opinion on the strategy, receiving, naturally, a thoroughly NPC-like smile.

"Forget it. Let's fight it ourselves."

Young A-Jing was dejected for a moment, then took the axe his teammate handed him once again, looked at the Deadwood Vine poised to strike, and declared:

"Snow leopards, let's go!"

"Awooo~" ×3

As the final axe blow fell, the Deadwood Vine's last branch was completely severed.

The plant's stalk, shorn bald, let out a wail before going utterly still. The hollow tree trunk it had usurped also split apart, exposing its center, which had long since been gnawed clean.

"So... we won?"

[Good Times Don't Last] lowered his axe. Aside from the somewhat tedious combat routine, nothing seemed particularly difficult.

Presumably, he had been solo-killed the first time because he had charged out in front. Had all four of them attacked together then, they probably would have taken down this monster long ago.

Meanwhile, [Zhongde] pulled his right hand out of a tightly coiled branch, dusted it off, and said:

"If we hadn't won soon, I'd have lost my whole body to it."

As he spoke, he poked the severed arm against the stump at his shoulder, but the scene he had expected did not occur.

He could only carry the arm over to Ed, and the guide NPC's purpose became apparent at that moment. Aside from providing beginner guidance, he clearly also served as a healer.

Seeing work coming his way, Ed hurriedly held out both hands in a very NPC-like manner and began applying buffs to the severed arm and wound, while the players started talking.

"I suddenly noticed a slight sense of growth after the fight, but there's no experience bar displayed."

It was [Howling Pothos], who had gone the entire fight without taking damage.

His words were clearly meant for his companions, with no thought at all of avoiding the NPC to talk privately.

Ed was also happy to pretend he could not understand a word, simply standing nearby looking vacant and foolish as he used wooden tongs to keep collecting Deadwood Vine fragments from the ground.

These things still had their uses, and might even come in handy very soon.

As for the experience bar, Ed was actually a little troubled too. After all, this was not a real game, merely a world dressed up as one.

Combat experience, vitality, and all sorts of other things could actually fall under the category of experience points.

Having Little Green add an experience bar to the panel would certainly be no problem, but the key was how to measure the acquisition of experience points.

He could hardly have a player grind a hundred Deadwood Vines only to discover that their experience bar had overflowed without them leveling up. That would count as a catastrophic bug.

Still, although this problem needed solving, it was not the most pressing matter.

No game received optimizations every single day. Saving up issues that affected the experience and then releasing one big update was, of course, the realistic way to do it.